Surly Travellin' Trolloff

So we decided to build the ultimate on/off road tourer. With an off road excursion in Morocco in December planned it was time to build up the bike for a shakedown trip in Scotland. 

We chose to use a Surly Troll as the foundation for the build, when the cockroaches rule the Earth there will still be the Surly Troll

- the apocalypse frameset. 

We sent the frame off to Bob Jacksons in Leeds to have some S&S couplings fitted, next followed a desert sand powdercoat, a fitting colour for it's intended destination 

(cheers Armortex)

The wheelset was built using a Rohloff hub laced into Velocity Blunt 35's with an SP Dynamo front hub for lighting and charging duties. 

This was also an excuse to try out the new Cinq 5 Rohloff trigger shifters with the

 rather neat click box. 

For charging electronics we've been using the Plug III which is a neat solution for mounting a USB charger, this coupled with the SP Dynamo front hub and USE Revo light seem to fulfil all our requirements.

Other finishing kit was a mixture of tried and tested components including Middleburn chainset, Thomson seatpost, Jones Loop bars and a rather comfy Brooks Cambium C15 saddle. 

Final touches were some custom stickers from Gil naming it the Travellin' Trolloff and some Apidura luggage for carrying all our gear. 

We'll post some pictures from it's shakedown trip to Scotland. 

Look out for long term reports of the Cinq shifters and Plug III too.

Bristol Bikefest

We're back from tandemeering at this Sundays event. Battered, cut, bruised and broken. After bending our front timing chainring for the second time on the second lap we called it a day and grabbed a fat bike instead. Way to go is a smaller 32 chainring for better clearance and probably a heavy duty bash guard to help against the cack handed pilot. Apart from that we had great fun swooping in and out of the trees, we don't have them in the North West.

Thanks to all the other participants for putting up with us.

Fatties on the beach

It's always good to get out and ride our bikes and catch up with some customers at the same time.

So a ride organised by John (one of said customers) on Sunday proved to be the ideal opportunity.

We left Oldham and headed out to the coast and to clearer skies with the Fat bikes for a day of riding on beaches, playing in the dunes and hooning through the woods.

Empty beaches, it was pretty windy.

Obligatory bikes in a row shot. 

There are some pretty big dunes round Formby.

Rich making it look easy.

Me, relieved I didn't face plant in front of everyone. 

To finish off we did some loops of Formby woods, ate doughnuts saw some red squirrels and got a good exfoliation from the wind and sand on the way back.

All in all a grand day out!

Big thanks to John for organising and whose photos I have shamelessly nicked :-)

Riding the Welsh Ride Thing

So we decided to take a well earned break last bank holiday and get out and ride our bikes for more than a day. At fairly short notice we decided we'd go and do the Welsh Ride Thing. The WRT isn't a race it's more of a challenge that can be a easy or hard as you like. A month or so before Stuart who organises the event gives out a list of grid references, you then throw all your maps on the floor and attempt to plot a route to ride between them all (or not if you prefer a more relaxed approach). 

This years references covered areas of mid Wales and the Shropshire Borders both areas we hadn't done a lot of riding in so it was a good opportunity to find some new trails and put our latest bike through it's paces. Yes it's a mid fat 29r off road tandem.

 The event starts on the Saturday afternoon and finishes on the Monday so we'd be carrying all our gear on the bike for 2 nights bivying out on the hills.

The weather was good and over the course of the two days we rode on the Kerry Ridgeway, Offas Dyke and Gwyndyrs Way and even though 132 people set off at the start we saw only a handful as everyone's routes took a different path. 

Riding a 70lb laden tandem does have some advantages in that you can eat a lot and not feel too guilty about it!

 View from the bivvy spot before riding the last 40 miles in. 

Over the couple of days we rode some amazing trails, slept in some beautiful spots, hit speeds of over 50mph on the tandem (going downhill!) and pushed it over some very steep hills. 

If you fancy an introduction to bike packing the WRT is a relaxed and friendly event to give it a  go at.

Riding new bikes in the sunshine

It was the begining of April again and time for a little celebration. It was around this time 3 years ago that we opened our little shop. For the second year running we've invited a few customers and a couple of guys from Surly Bicycle Corporation have come over to play. This year they insisted on going for a ride in the sunshine and the Northern Weather Gods smiled down on us.

Surly Trevor

Surly Tyler

A Big Red Bus

Our friends at URBED provided a Routmaste bus into which we shoe-horned 20 or so fat bikes, mid-fat bikes and some other stuff, mostly people. Fuelled by sweeties we headed out towards Marsden Moor.  Marvelling at the great weather we were looking forward to getting out for a ride.
And ride we did, whooping and swooping - little people in a big Pennine landscape.

Ice Cream Truck meet Ice Cream Van

Mid ride fuel stop before we headed for the canal to make our way back to the big city.

 

Once back we tucked into a few slices of Pizza and Beer. A few people who couldn't make the ride due to having to work for a living popped by during the evening and once the pizza ran out we made short work of the fantastic Clown Cake provided by Karen

We moved on to the Castle pub to wash that down with one or two halves of shandy :o)

See y'all next year...

ps
in case you missed it this much fun couldn't have been accomplished without the help of;
Surly Bikes
Ison Distribution
Slice Pizza
Karens Baking Room
and the fine Big Red Bus driving skills of Charlie from URBED

also the lenses of;
Steve Makin
and
Andy Kirkland
and
John Moore

Getting the rat ready for a ride