Hit the North

Well, that was bloody fab. Got there in plenty of time, registered and had a chat with some folks. All too soon we were corralled between some tape, given some instructions and the we were off. Whoop! Took me a couple of laps to get into my cross bike groove and then started to enjoy it in a "this hurts but it'll do you good" kind of way. Many photos to come of people grinding and sliding their way around the 20 minute laps I'm sure. Surely there can't be a repeat of this one? Scroll down past the video to see some arse on a cross bike holding up 3 mountain bike riders. You'll be pleased to know the silly bars have gone and proper cantis now do the stopping. Those KoolStop canti pads are fab by the way. They've battered around all winter since completing the 3 Peaks and there's still half of them left even after today. Front tube didn't fare so well - at least it waited til it had been washed and blow dried before giving up around 6 hours later. Good timing.

Results are in. Surprised to see only 150ish of the original 200 actually bothered to turn up. 18th place for me, disappointing. Well done to everyone else.

Thanks to all those involved in the organisation, especially Jason and his mid race encouragement - it really works. Great spirit in the race too - no bad tempered racerheads that I saw - a great atmosphere.

See you next time!

Some Core bike stuff...

Some stuff from the Core bike show.

I think I've got a customer for this one...
Shiny aluminium fenders from Extra. All sizes around £45.
Fixie hub prototype using HG cassette cogs. Easier to swap cogs and use bigger ones than are normally available to screw on.Neat looking bar/stem solution

A great looking fixie from ID £650

Saddles on the same frame, from the same factory as the Charge Spoon - so they should be comfy.
New Gusset outboard cranks and bearings in pretty colours...

Pivotal saddles coming soon,
many coloured fixed cogs,
New Salsa Vaya, coming soon. Crosscheck with discs and a 'slightly' lower bb Note the proper front lowrider mounts on the fork, just like an LHT. £1349
Salsa Casserol, Pacer with all the fixings for racks, etc.
A new fix from Extra, the name escapes me. Nice and reasonably priced frame.
Folding bike from Topeak, replacement for the Birdy mebbe?
Mmmmmm. S3X and other Sturmey stuff stuff maybe coming from Ison soon.
Sustainable cork from Portugal made into grips and packaged in recycled card. Below are GR2s now with rubber ends rather than magnesium. Warmer on those chilli mornings and about the same weight.

snow biking!

Drifty out there, and pushy and slidey too. Hopefully a return to almost rideable trails soon.

A walk in the snow

So, we dragged ourselves out of bed at a ridiculous time for a Christmas day morning and were out the door for 9 o'clock, eek! By the end of the walk some 7 hours later I looked and felt a bit pooped, Shona as usual was fine and still 'Tigger-bouncy'.

We stumbled across a huge flock of geese snuffling around in the snow for some mid flight food. They could have just been killing time though as no-one would want to fly in the pea souper the day had become. It had started out full of blue sky promise but rapidly deteriorated.
A smackerel of lunch was provided by Jetboil Inc and Knorr Soups Unlimited washing down several large slices of Barm Brack, yum.
More scenes of Northern Snowiness. Its really is quite deep out there in places and lots of fun. My newly won Arc'teryx jacket got a proper workout as we rolled and frollicked in the snow. Thanks go to the Canadian tourist board and Heason Events for providing that!


We leave you with a question...

How many snowy expeditions did it take the likes of Bonnington, Cave, Kirkpatrick, etc before snowfights wore a bit thin?

(It would take about 50 for us I think, tee hee.)

RoadRideSpain

just got back from a week in spain with everyone at FreerideSpain in the very sunny Alpujarras region. We took the roadbikes for a last fling in the sunshine for 2009. It wasn't the plan but somehow managed to ride every day...

up to the alledged second highest village in Europe, Trevelez, for the first run. A couple of hours up followed swiftly by a howler of a descent back into the valley - nearly missed our turn off as there was a van parked in front of the signpost - eek. Now that could have been a long detour into the wrong valley.

next day, off to the coast with Simon (our host). it went something like this,

rich "*gasp* so is this *pant* your comfortable pace then *wheeze* "
simon " yeah, pretty comfy"
rich "*gulp* oh, help... *gasp*

made it to past the coast and half way back to Orgiva before things started to go a bit squiffy. note to self: if the first 40k out to the coast are at an average 38kph bloody slow down.

Another ride out to the coast on Wednesday. This time over to Castell de Ferro on the coast via Haza de Lino on the top of the hill and the never relenting climb from the coast through Polopos on the return. For a frame of reference the bar at Haza de Lino is at 1200m. It was very warm.

Saturday was a fab big 130k ride out almost to Granada before turning left and heading to a steady loop into the hills thru Jayena and Agron. There really is so little traffic out there that it seems like we had the place to ourselves. A bit cooler today but still around the 28 degree mark. Keep drinking and slapping on the sun cream. Never, ever pass up a chance to fill that water bottle out here. Some of the Spanish guys we saw out and about were already in arm warmers and tights but we were feeling close to fried a lot of the time.

If you own a road bike then maybe you should get out here sometime. The roads really are something else. The climbs are immense and the surfaces really are smoooth. Spanish drivers really have to be experienced. We were passed within 6ft a handful of times all week, y'know what? they all had UK plates. It's almost like the locals would rather push another driver into a ditch than pass too close to a cyclist. Simon, Emma and Lee are great hosts. They'll take you out and show you the best routes, leave you to explore with a map or anything inbetween.

time to give the legs a rest, easy commuting only for few days :o)

rich.

ps If you're ever snacking at a cafe in Lanjaron and a cute pooch that looks a little like a German Short Haired Pointer comes begging, could you take him home to FreeRideSpain? He's probably escaped again and has no shame.

it's next weekend, eek...

just back from 45 miles on the crosser. Lovely Sunshiney Day. hope it's like this next Sunday, i hate walking up hills in the rain :o)

many Madones go mad from Manchester.

Okay, finally got the image from the event photographer. Number 346 in daft things to do is pop down and see your friends racing around a field in the middle of the night, in the middle of the night...

It started as many things seem to around here as one of those throwaway comments. Must stop throwing those around. Shona and I worked all day Saturday while our mates were starting their racing at Sleepless in the Saddle down in sunny south Derbyshire - about 75 miles away. Harsh meanwhile was driving up to the Howgills to run around a bit for a couple of hours. He got back to Manchester at 4 and we finished work at 6. Rendevouz at his place at 7-ish, he thought it might be a good idea to finish getting his stuff together, then we left.

Somehow the mis-communication went around that it was about 50 miles to our beds, oops. Our merry, at some points not so merry, band pedalled our way thru Macclesfield, Leek, Ashbourne and finally hit Catton Park at around 00.30 Sunday morning. 'Funny' points, depending on your perspective, included two of us colliding tyre with bladed spoke - you couldn't puncture that way again if you tried...

Walking into Catton Park was weird. We all knew where we were as we'd been here before under racing orders. Seeing the lights of riders whizzing around the hillsides was a familiar and comforting sight. As we hopped off our bikes and wandered thru the campsite looking for familiar tents and vehicles it seemed a little odd to be asked by a resident camper where the nearest standpipe was, dunno mate we really have just stepped into the arena.

Three of us headed straight for the food tent of course. We were all starving and it's the most likely place to hook up with the straggly racers we were looking for. Sure enough pretty soon we'd scoffed baked potatoes, pasta, coffee and flapjacks and *bonus points* found some familiar faces. We followed back to the friendly village of tents and popped ours up ready for later.

After confusing some with our sudden appearance we headed off to heckle nightime encouragement at some bike riders, mostly team players though as the soloists seemed to be in their own special place, caves or something. I don't pretend to understand.

After a few hours sleep we hit the food tent again, heckled a bit more and said our goodbyes. Throwing our excess gear at Sherpa Dave we headed North and were home in time for tea in Manchester, cheers Harsh ;o) The funnest 24hrs we've had in a while.


Well done to everyone who raced, everyone we know placed well.

You stand on the start line, you're already a winner.