Thumbs Up!

A definite improvement in my bad thumb - last night I did a night ride from Hope (Mam Tor -Rushup - Pindale). I was gritting my teeth a bit towards the end on the rocky descent down Pindale but overall a big improvement. No lasting effects today either.

The night ride was plagued by mechanicals - lights problems and ripped tubeless tyres - butwas still a fun ride. The trails are still dry, the temperatures balmy, and the overall group vibe is pretty chilled and laid back. Out of 6 riders, 4 were on singlespeeds, for a change I was not one of them. I took the Rocky Ridge with its big tyres and 130mm Marzocchis to cushion my injured hand. It was strange to be the sat down whilst the others heaved and grunted their way up the hills. I just can't get my head round using really spinny gears though. It feels all wrong to sit back and spin easy gears, I feel much better clicking into a harder ratio hurting a bit.

Not the 3 Peaks

I mentioned earlier about my injured thumb, nothing serious really, just a badly druised (or maybe cracked) knuckle. It meant that I couldn't brake from the drops without wincing. A very minor problem for most people, but for someone planning to do the 3 Peaks, a show stopper.

I rested it a week, then last Friday evening (2 days before the race) I took the cross bike out for a spin round the local trails. The first descent, a fairly tame rocky track down the side of the golf course, had my eyes watering with the pain in my knuckle. At least I didn't have to agonise over whether or not I should do the race - it was a clear 'no way'. Disappointed, I trudged back home and put the bike away. No 3 Peaks for me this year.

My friend Dan did compete though, he managed 4:44, a good result. I usually beat him by a good margin, so this was even more galling. I read a few accounts of the race on singletrackworld today and felt even more gutted. I missed a good 'un it seems.

There's always next year...

The last few years, nearly all of my mountainbiking has been on a singlespeed Inbred. Inbreds are made by a British company called On One, based in a garden shed in Todmorden (well, actually they are made in Taiwan, but we won't go into that). Brant Richards is the guy behind the company, have a look at his entertaining website, and see if you are tempted. It used to be the source of all things singlespeedy and eclectic, but is now a bit more mainstream. There's still plenty of interest on there though.

The Inbred is a modern classic in my view, I'll write more about it another time. Where else could you buy a fantastic steel frame that'll see you through almost anything you can throw it at, for around 250 quid? Go and check it out.

Update

I fell off the bike on Thursday last week. Apart from the usual bruises and scrapes, I hurt my right thumb. At first I thought I might have broken it, but the swelling has gone down a bit now. I tried a ride on the cross bike yesterday, taking in some of the tamer of the stoney and lumpy trails round my way. Descending using the drops was pretty bad, the bars nestle in the crook of your hand just next to the big thumb joint, the one I injured. Bumps were eye-watering. I couldn’t brake with my right hand, which is something of a problem.

I’m hoping it’ll heal up over the next few days, or the 3 Peaks could be off.

Palimpsest

What is it? It's a manuscript that has been erased and rewritten, but where the original text can still be traced. The word is sometimes used to describe something where many layers of something have been laid down, one top of the other, each new layer only partly concealing the last. What's this got to do with bikes eh?

I've been accused a many times of not looking after my bikes. Of being 'the world's laziest mechanic', and best of all, of 'neglecting that singlespeed to within an inch of its rusty life.' None of this is true of course. I'm not a bike geek, I'd much rather spend an hour riding than fettling in the garage and this shows. I don't have that fascination with new bling bike bits that most of my riding buddies thrive on. Superlight wheel sets, tyres for every conceivable type of mud, lights that turn night into day, forks that have more knobs than a Boeing 747? No thanks.

I've got my old singlespeed. It's only 4 years old, but looks older. The frame is scuffed, scratched and dented. Every mark on it tells a story, from the big rock dent on the downtube to the bare metal on the chainstays caused by my wonky pedalling style. Some parts of the frame have hardly any paint left at all, like the dropouts in the picture. I could get it resprayed, but then I'd be covering up the layers of memories trapped in all those scratches, it is my palimpsest after all.

Ouch!

I ride to work a few days a week. It’s 15 miles each way, mostly on busy roads, so it’s not my idea of a great ride, but it’s loads better than not riding at all. In fact, sometimes it’s the only riding I get to do, what with busy work life, busy family life and busy weekends.

Yesterday it rained all the way in, and after 15 miles of safely weaving my way round lunatic car drivers, I managed to fall off just outside work. The entrance to our basement car park is down a cobbled street. The cobbles are polished to a beautiful slippery shine by the tyres of our director’s Mercs and BMWs and become decidedly glassy when wet. Although I took it nice and carefully, my front wheel washed out and I went down like a bag of bricks. I managed to scrape and bruise my hip and knee and somehow hurt my thumb.

When I rode home that evening, I found I couldn’t really grip the bars, and had to call off my planned mountain bike ride (we were meeting up at Mam Tor, and it was looking like a nice evening…).

Today the thumb is a bit purple and swollen, like something off a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I don’t think it is broken. I hope not – the 3 Peaks is only a week away.

3 Peaks Blogs

Have a look over on the 3 Peaks cyclocross blog. He's a top ten finisher so I guess I won't see much of him. His comment about me singlespeeding the 'Peaks is wrong though, my Cross bike is geared ... maybe next year eh?

‘Cross Rider

What with it being the 3 Peaks Cyclocross Race in a couple of weeks, it was time to try riding the ‘cross bike offroad. Saturday afternoon I had a clear 3 hour slot, so I stripped the mudguards off, put some teeny knobbly tyres on, pumped ‘em up to 90psi, and headed out for the hills.

Some cyclocross bikes are built around a comfy steel frame with plenty of flex to take the sting out of the bumps (like a Surly Crosscheck for instance), but mines a Giant TCX race frame. This means it is aluminium, has fat tubes and is as stiff as very stiff thing. You can feel every individual blade of grass you ride over, well almost. What I am doing with such a frame I’m not sure, but I did get a special deal on it, and its day job is as a commuter bike, which it does just fine.

I took it on a regular mountain bike route, with one or two of the rockier descents avoided. It’s more than a year since I have taken it on a ride like this, like I said, it’s mainly a road commuter, with the occasional off road commute on some tame stuff and the odd winter cross race.

The bike was brilliant. Climbing was tough and sort of ‘singlespeedy’, no really low gears and a good chance of tyres spitting traction if you don’t keep your weight back. Pretty fast though. Descending is best done on the drops, which puts you in a nose down position which can be a bit alarming at first, especially on the steeper stuff. You soon get used to it and the bike feels very planted and controllable. Loose stuff is best taken at speed, false teeth removed in advance. I got a bit of backache and sore hands, but got down everything and climbed just about everything including some rock-steppy stuff. I covered quite a lot of ground in my 3 hours too. I’d better do another ride on it before the Peaks, if only to get my back and hands accustomed to it.

If I lived in a less rocky area, I’d spend a lot of time on a crosser. But I don’t, so there’s more smiles in riding the Inbred.

Full Moon Night Ride

It feels like all my mountainbiking is night rides lately, and these are only once a week. Last Thursday’s was a corker though. I had another ‘shall I/shan’t I’ dilemma over the singlespeed/geared bike, with usual dad-with-young-children fatigue hanging over me like a grey cloud. I took the line of most resistance and wheeled out the singlespeed, telling myself ‘just walk if the hills are too tough’. Yeah, right.

We met up in Hayfield, 4 of us, just me on the singlespud Inbred, the others on a Giant Reign (borrowed from WhatMTB), an Orange Sub 5 with silly big forks and a rigid Tinbred. Quite an eccentric mix then.

We did a relaxed two hour loop over Ollersett, Coldwell Clough and the Shooting Cabin. We had blue skies, a gaudy polluted sunset over Manchester and then a full moon bright enough to cast shadows on the heather. My legs remembered how to turn a 32:16 on the climbs, and I actually got into a groove on the technical descents, flowing over the rocks instead of my usual ricocheting from one to the next. The recent rains have spruced up the moors nicely, bringing out rich greens and purples, even the sheep looked like they’d had a good shampooing. The guys were on good form and it was a pleasure to be out.

I rode home along the Sett Valley Trail on my own, and saw two badgers, one had a good look over his shoulder at me, his eyes reflecting my lights. He seemed pretty nonchalant and trotted down the trail ahead of me until he got to his turn off. A minor event, but it gave me a buzz, and I said 'thanks' to badger when I passed.

Just back from holiday in Cornwall. Plenty of fun time with the family, bad food and too many cakes. There was only a little bit of bike riding, the best being a jaunt down the Camel Trail from Wadebridge to Padstow (now known as the Rick Stein Corporate Theme Park), Sam (4) went on a tagalong bike, towed by mum, and Beth (2) went in the Burley trailer (towed by me). It's only about 7 miles, flat and traffic free, but pretty full of numpty bike riding hazards on hire bikes, swerving in a random manner, so it's not without interest.

The scenery is gorgeous, the trail is flanked by the Camel estuary all the way, and although this was the 3rd time we've done this ride, we were blown away by how beautiful it is. Definitely a recommended family day out, and Rick Stein's chippy does the best fish and chips ever.

I did get out for a few hours on the road bike one morning, slogging my way around some of the precipitous lanes of the north Cornwall coast. These roads are steep. The hills might be short, a few hundred feet climbed at most, but 1 in 5 is pretty common, and gravel, potholes and grass growing down the middle is the norm. Great riding if you must ride on the road. No appreciable mountain biking nearby as far as I could tell.