Back to bikes. Why is it that now fork manufacturer's are producing designs that cannot accomodate a mudguard of some description? My bike is of a design where I cannot fit a crudcatcher, so with my old Rockshox I had a 'guard that was secured by expansion bolt up the stem [O, er missus!] which worked a treat. Now, with no 'guard the wheelspray really is awful. For much of my ride I had to slow not because of the conditions, but because I had so much spray in my face I couldn't see where I was going. Time to build another custom mudguard me thinks.

Right, enough moaning and griping for the day. For all the rain and equipment shortcomings [which were really only minor - it is a bit of a miracle that today's bikes just keep on going through some really horrid terrain] I thoroughly enjoyed the wet ride - isn't this what being a mountain biker is all about? Being out there, against the elements and the land?



24/05/09: Well done Jensen! A boring race, but he's looking good to go now isn't he?

Out this morning in "Billy No Mates" guise again. Omens bad as I lost my water bottle within a mile. I know, I know; don't use them with a mountain bike, but I was only going out for a shortie to Caterham. Anyway, up to the top via the horrid climb, but then once up there I cut back down over the top of the Quarry Hanger SSSI vis the short downhill section. Not technically challenging, so easy in one sense. However, the off-camber, largely gravel path was abutted by a rusty fence against a drop into trees which was a little off-putting, so naturally I was a wuss and dragged the brakes all the way down. Speaking of which, I really must bin the Hope C2 as it is now a piece of crap largely outdone by rim brakes. Two finger braking with the lever all the way back on the stop eventually produces a result. I'm also still running the rubbish Panaracer Fire XC Pro's, and they are sketchy as hell around here. May chop them for some Racing Ralph's when I get around to it.

[This week my new bit for the bike were some pads for the Magura HS33's I run on the back. Now I like the brakes, as they are powerful and reliable, but I hate setting them up as there are four screws to adjust at the same time. Got around it by removing the booster, setting them up individually, then re-fitting the booster. How much of a faff is that?]

And the weekly moan? Flies. I'm a mouth breather and it is so irritating to choke one of the buggers down every few hundred metres. Can you get fly flu?

I'm kind of getting into this Caterham short ride thing. You get some decent views, and you don't see too many folk out and about. Note the kind of there - by any measure it is not an outstanding ride as it is a bit choppy, with no clear runs. However, as with a lot of things sometimes you find stuff with a bit of effort. For instance I didn't know about the SSSI at Quarry Hangers. Now I have somewhere different to take the children for an hour or so.



25/05/09: Unheard of! I was out again today, so two rides in as many days. Neighbour out, on his rather unusual steed. I've given him 400 trillion bike magazines to try and encourage him to buy something at least made within the past 15 years. Anyway, I'm determined to break into the "Caterham scene" so rode over the tops. Now I think I'm getting the hang of this. I'm used to riding up a hill, then along a ridge for ages. In other words covering miles with little effort. The Caterham thing seems to be; ride up a big steep hill, then down, then up, etc., etc., etc.. You kind of have to 'session' the area. One big positive here is that one is never too far from home. One big negative is no cafe for tea and cakes! This may turn out to be a major negative.



1/6/09: Playing in the woods near Caterham. No idea who owns the land - I followed a trail off the bridleway that had horse prints. Bad move! I fell off three times being silly trying trials moves when in reality I'm a 44 year old hombre who should know better. At least I wasn't daft enough to put my hand out to stop my fall each time, avoiding the classic broken collar bone incident, instead using my shoulder or head. Both are much softer. The wood may have been fun had I not got lost following a deer track that - and you can guess this one - gradually got narrower and narrower until it just disappeared. Guess deers and I have different requirements of a track? I ended up carrying the bike for about 200m until I found another deer track. Now this proved to be a bit more fun, so I may explore this one again. Kind of a mini Leith Hill. At the end I was knackered, with a bloody leg, but oddly happy. Mountain biking is meant to be a trial, and I certainly made one this day.




7/6/09: Getting boring with Jensen now isn't it? Well done, but where's the fight? Only two drivers before have done what he has done now, so he's up there with the greats.

Ride today - yeuk! Heavy rain in the morning made the trails slick, and grip was hard to find. Needless to say the order of the day was to hack along regardless of the conditions. Man down! My partner had a big off coming down and along Colley Hill. He wasn't impressed, and looked a little shell shocked. But to be honest how he keeps that rig going in the current format is beyond me. It is frankly a shit piece of kit that should either be binned or partially rebuilt [new front wheel, headset adjusted, back brake cable, front mech, new chainset..... £80 or so off eBay or Halfords Bike Hut]. The slick from the front tyre has gone thanks to my parts bin, but no front mech means the chain falls off frequently [which it would probably do anyway even with a mech]. Worse than a singlespeed - at least the front cogs on those are of a deeper cut to keep the chain on. And the latest is that the front rim has a 20cm split in it. Hero in keeping it going, fair play, as I couldn't [and wouldn't!] but there comes a point where equipment has to be junked or seriously worked on. In reality it is of similar age and damn it value to my Clockwork, so I'm not knocking the bike for what it should be, more for what it is - a mess!

One of the things in riding with old equipment [and for all I say about the Trek, my Klein is of a similar vintage so not a new toy by any stretch] is that it makes you ponder on those who exclusively use this years model, and regularly trade up. Most bikes you see in the shops seem to become sale bikes within 6 months, which is pointless to me. It does mean that there are bargains to be had out there if you are prepared to save and wait. Sure the designers dick around with frame geometry's every year, but let's be honest - most of us would never notice such subtle changes. Certainly if you avoid the magazines, then you miss the hype so can pick and chose to suit yourself. I've just built up a Gary Fisher around a Fox F90RL fork. Both are a few years old [essentially new old stock on sale], but the final bike weighs less than the new one by about 4lb, is of way better specification and was actually cheaper by over £100. I also made it up myself to a specification to suit me not Mr Average. Furthermore I've bought the parts either used or pretty close to used price, so if I don't like any of it just sell them on for what I paid. I'm also a little suspicious of the magazines these days. Some highlight a particular bike as being brilliant, but don't feature the bikes you see out on the trails. I'm thinking here of magazines that rate Giant or Lapierre bikes, but never ever feature, say Orange. Most people ride Marin bikes around here, so I'd say they are probably the brand to go for.

Back to the ride: Rain was the order of the day. Now here my shite equipment is my glasses. I slowed to a crawl simply because I couldn't see where I was going. Don't fancy going back to the contact lenses. Took a few wrong turns now and again. Well, one has to have an excuse for... well existing really.

And the funny? We were riding along together, and I was bitching about lack of grip from the rear tyre - kept spinning up. Needless to say we were caught up by a 70 year old on an old Raleigh road/MTB bike with 1cm slick tyres. He appeared to be wearing several jackets, one of them a yellow hi-viz road worker plastic thing. Suspect our big fat mountain bike tyres were floating, and his were cutting through the crud. But even so...... Moral here is stop bitching, don't blame the gear, and learn to ride a bike properly.


14/06/09: Finally finished the Gary Fisher Tassajara... So much for my £500 bike though; came in nearer £900, which hurt as new ones are £700. Teach me for using Fox forks, Shimano SLX and USE1.Com stuff to finish it off! 25lb weigh was a surprise, and I'm a bit hacked off it came in so heavy [although reading the bike mags 25lb is a bit of a target weight for light bikes, so I may be too harsh on the bike here]. Of course I could stop drinking beer each night and eating a Danish with each coffee of a morning. I'm also still not convinced by the Euro Racer look I went for; narrow flat carbon bars with lots of shims above the handlebar stem so that you can sell the forks at the end of the season! For tyres I went for some Continental 2.2 Race Kings. These I was worried about as they don't have much in the way of knobblies on and look kind of slick to me. Anyway, how does it ride? Well there is a story here first...

I've been looking for the mythical "Secret Singletrack" around here for ages. By dint of looking on the ground, studying maps and working it out in my head I've finally found it. In the end I spotted a gap in some bushes and stuck my nose in. Now Dear Reader I'm not going to tell you where it is, just be aware it is very good indeed. Lots of deer and fox tracks through woodland, up and down dips, sharp inclines, steep drops, the lot. But it needs a specific bike to make it work. Narrow bars to get through the trees, hardtail format with 100mm front suspension, lack of weight as the bike will be carried, good acceleration from a lightweight wheelset, and a bike that handles very well. Yup, my Tassajara fits the bill perfectly. And those Race Kings? Very grippy oddly enough, even through some of the mud on the more sheltered bridleways. Way, way better than the Panaracer Race Pro things - needless to say I've ordered a set for the Klein. Back to being confident on a bike me thinks. Well, until I find another equipment excuse for poor performance!

Bizarre how I found the Secret Singletrack on my very first ride on the thing, but I certainly enjoyed it. Very zen, or karma or whatever. Bit like being a child again! One of those rides that when you get back you're narked that it has stopped. Really enjoyed being out and about today; one of the best rides I've had in years.



17/06/09:  Had ten minutes to kill today, so had a look at those Boardman bikes in Halfords. Now they look good specification, and so value for money is high. But, the downtube sounded thin to me so I  looked a little harder at it. Ooops, managed to put a dent in the tube by squeezing it. Now is it me, or is that wrong? Should one, by finger pressure alone, be able to dent a main tube on a mountainbike? I've read of these things actually ripping they are so thin now.



21/06/09: Hype. Out on the Tassajara today. Dry trails, so once my legs had warmed up I started to push my speed. Boy does this bike move. It just wants to fly. So, hype. For years I've been using the full susser with a set of riser bars and some tyres that would do a tractor proud. I enjoyed my ride, but they were always a bit of a struggle and gradually I reduced the distances or chose places without too many up bits. I figured something was wrong; mass. My bike was good once it was moving, but stalled each time I stopped peddling or thought of going uphill. Now 30lb for a full susser is not a bad weight at all. However, it is still 30lb and that takes some shifting uphill. Plus the riser bar makes for a wondering beast. So I'm going back to a flat bar [which incidentally shaves almost a lb off the weight of the bike]. Agreed if I was going to a Scottish or Welsh trail centre I'd want a modern full suspension rig with 140mm each end and I wouldn't worry too much about the weight issue, but for here abouts the lighter the bike is, then the better it is.

On the way back a couple of roadies passed us. Neither said a word, and each was on some skinny wheeled racer, so we silently crept up to their back wheels, got a bit of our breath back, then accelerated past when they didn't expect it. Childish, but I really enjoyed hurting them!


28/06/09: This week I took a long look at the Klein and decided to return it to its' cross country roots. It was never going to be a viable freeride machine, and I like my tyres to maintain contact with the ground thank you. So out went the riser bars, hard lock-on grips and tractor tyres. In came a Salsa Moto Ace flatish bar, some Continental 2.2 Race Kings and a Magura caliper. Lost about a lb in weight and ended up faster through the switchbacks but about the same uphill. As a result I got to Headley Heath in about 30 min.s so carried on past, took a few detours down bridleways, and picked up my old favourite Stane Street route at Epsom. Followed this to Box Hill via Juniper Bottom and around back to Headley and Reigate. I'm guessing at a hard 35 - 40 miles pretty much 100% off road. Very, very enjoyable; took me back to the days when I'd happily do 80 miles off-road each Sunday. Bike moaned like a bitch on the way back though - needs a new gear cable. No biggie; it's been on for well over 2 years anyway and has been mis-shifting for months. I just hate changing cable so put up with it. Salsa bars, by the way, were very comfy so will probably end up on the Pace 303. Interesting that some flat bars and different tyres transformed the bike.

And the trails? Fast, dusty and with loads of gravel and flint showing through. Not many mountain bikers out for some reason, but loads of horse riders who were all in a jolly good frame of mind. Stane Street was a real joy - fast, hard and twisty with that wonderful smell you get through the woods. Dry dust mixed up with sap. I've cycled a lot of places, but around here still rates highly. When dry the chalk surface is real fast. OK a bitch in the wet....

Redhill to Reigate / Reigate to Walton-on-the-Hill / Walton-on-the-Hill to Headley / Headley to Epsom / Stane Sreet [Epsom] to Mickleham / Juniper Bottom to Box Hill / Box Hill to Headley / Headley to Redhill.

Joy being that I, a 44 year old office worker who cannot drive past a Starbucks without ordering a cinnamon muffin, can still pull the punches when it comes to the longer rides.

Looks like some tea rooms open up on Sunday in Headley. Count me in! Especially if they do cinnamon muffins....



5/7/09: Hot, dry and dusty was the order of the day. Bit like riding through sand, and my bike didn't float through it as expected. Doesn't help that I've been drinking beer and eating cakes all week. Oddly hard going, especially as I chose a route that included some of the hardest gravel and tree root climbs around, and we both ended up with jelly legs. Did the Mickleham run but took the wrong path off the top of the hill and went down some boring section instead of the steep drop I wanted. A hard ride, but an enjoyable one - I was certainly glad I'd chosen a lightweight bike. I suspect that if we'd tried the longer ride of last week, right over to Epsom, then we would have been better off. Longer yes, but in the shade and only the one horrid climb. Apologies if I sound miserable about it, but the heat really is taking its' toll on me. I really enjoyed the ride, but the 30 degree heat we've had has left me in poor shape. Most likely I'm a tad dehydrated as my drink of choice is coffee. D'oh! I'm also riding worse than I did ten years ago. One section in Headley I've failed to clear each time we've ridden it, yet I used to have no trouble with it [allegedly]. Getting old! 

What a self-centred whiner I am this week.

Tried the new cafe at Headley. Very friendly in there, and they do the biggest coffee in the world. Not a large choice of cakes, but the little shop has a rather nice selection of food for the greedy cyclist. Had a chat with some bikers who figure Specialized to be the most reliable of bikes. Er, shouldn't that accolade go to the Shimano and Fox finishing kit? They gave me the ultimate put-down in stating that my bike was nice and clean. About the worst thing you can say to a mountain biker. Well, me. Call me a crap rider, or take the piss out of my accent, but don't say my bike is clean!

When we got back I had a look at the Trek 930 my colleague rides. How he rides that thing is beyond me. Perhaps he is a world class rider? Still has a split rim, torn saddle, a lose headset and now the adjusters for his V-brakes [remember them?] have popped out. I tried the brakes; to my way of thinking neither worked. They were either on, or off. Made of plastic[ine] they are complete junk. Found a more sturdy metal pair in my spares box that I gave him. I still think with between £80 and £100 spend it would make a passable summer bike. Up the ante to £150, and get a used Pace 36 fork off eBay and it would make a reasonable winter bike too. At the end of the day the only difference between the Trek and my Clockwork is a bit of TLC.


12/07/09:  Longish ride again this week - my re-discovered Stane Street route. Chosen weapon being my old Klein Mantra. Sometimes when the weather is a bit iffy, or I am, I quite like to take the old stager out as it is just such a reliable bike. Although saying that the Magura BAT that I fitted developed a leak pre-ride, so that was whipped off in favour of, well, something I like to call The Brick. Basic but functional original Julie. After all the rain of the past few days the trails were reasonably muddy. That horrid, slime like stuff where the rain has just soaked into the dust. With summer tyres on there was little grip to be had. Actually I'm fibbing here. At the start, when energy levels were high, there was little grip. However, when energy levels dropped after climbing Juniper Bottom [???] they gripped like anything. Essentially at the start I was a bike tart, looking for any excuse to blame for my bad riding, but by the end I was a thug who ploughed through anything and didn't notice a little slip here and there.

Stane Street was, as usual, fast. However it is gulley heaven at the moment [as it always is!] and I got caught a few times, ending up surfing the flint. My partner wondered what I was doing, jumping from side to side. He soon stopped when he hit a gulley side on. He also looked a little bemused at my description of Juniper Bottom. I described it as a shallow climb rising sharply to a nasty little increase near the top. As he had dismounted on the shallow end [don't forget he rides a 52 tooth front ring all the time] he couldn't quite see how it got steeper... until he got there that was. Good old Mantra cleaned it again, although I sounded like an 80 a day Woodbines man.



19/07/09: Out in lone cyclist mode. Didn't plan anything, and didn't fancy climbing either Reigate or Colley Hill so hit the A25 to Dorking. Humph! would have been better off-road as there was a viscious headwind all the way. Got a bit bored of it, so took the Old Reigate Road up to the top of Box Hill. Now that is a nasty climb, and I didn't clean it as I missed out the middle section, instead prefering two legs to two wheels. It is one I'll return to again though as you get some excellent views on the way up - some of those tree roots are amazing. From the top I zipped down Box Hill, which I have never liked. All that flint worries me in the event of an off, and the studded nature of the trail means my bike turns into a bone shaker and above about 25mph I simply cannot see any more. A decade ago I happily let go of the anchors and peddled madly down there, but not now. After that I picked up Stane Street for a little time, cutting around Mickleham Downs to Epsom, then paralleling the A217 back to Colley Hill via some nice singletrack by the golf course. 2.5 hours without a stop, and about 25 - 30 miles I'd guess.

I'd say the first half was boring; road riding never did it for me, and that climb up Box Hill was just plain wrong! Once back onto singletrack on Stane Street and the downs I had a pleasant, if unadventurous ride. I get like this mid-summer; a little lethargic and I can't be arsed with riding. Need a holiday!

[It was also around Betchworth that I got into some serious trouble on my Orange about 12 years ago. I was living in Sutton, and had planned a route down Stane Street to Box Hill, then down a footpath past a quarry near Betchworth, then following a footpath between the Pilgrims' Way and the A25, before going up over Colley Hill. It was February, and towards the mid-point of the ride snowing. I had with me a cotton t-shirt, shorts and a plastic mac as I'd not figured on snow. Anyway, daftly I battled the snow to Box Hill then instead of just turning around, decided to do the trip. On reflection this was probably the first sign of hypothermia. By the time I'd gotten down past the quarry I was shivering, slightly delusional and a bit wayward. Luckily it stopped snowing, but by then I was in the middle of a field following the railway for some reason. I was pushing my bike as the mud in the field just clagged everything up. This was a seriously hard time. Again I was lucky as the sun came out, so I warmed up, saw reason and cut back on the roads to Sutton. But when I got back I was a physical wreck and didn't get out of bed for four days due to a high temperature. Needless to say I've put myself in that situation several times since! Once in the Rockies, and once in Edinburgh. D'oh!]

Only saw two sets of mountain bikers out; a big bunch sitting down amongst the roadies at Box Hill then another smaller group from Banstead. This was an odd bunch - one of them was in lycra, and was mildly unfriendly verging on agressive - and I was happy when they took a side trail away from me. Now I'm no wilting violet; I chase bad people for a living. But there was just something about this group that didn't gel with me. Slightly agressive, on clean new £2k to £3.5k rigs but didn't seem to know the area, yet at the same time purported to be fairly local? If I'd been in work mode I'd have followed them to see what they were up to.

Paranoid? Me? 

Considering the rain we've had this week the trails were virtually bone dry, with only a little slime amongst the trees which was interesting with summer tyres on. I'd taken the Klein in the belief that the mud would be nasty but in the end my Tassajara would have performed well; nay better on that nasty climb up Box Hill. Too many choices in life.

As usual no mechanical dramas with the Klein, although I did notice that one spoke was lose and had a big ding in the middle - one would assume from a rock boinging off me. Better get that changed.



20/07/09: Sneaky! Left work at 16:30, home for 17:30 - wife left note that she was out. What shall I do? Make dinner? Bit of DiY? Nah look at my bikes first. Look that turned into "I'll just get one out" to going for an evening ride. Only a shortie up and around Reigate Hill. However as I was just mooching around I found a hidden bit of singletrack that somebody has been carving out of the hill. You only see the slightest gap in some brambles [cut my back open thanks!] and there it is. Needs work, and the Gatton Estate will probably close it down, but holds promise if left to grow. Luckily I was on the Tassajara with the narrow bars, but I still got snagged up a few times. Naughty!

Also managed to sign off on another T-shirt. Gone out for printing, should be with me soon. This time an MTB specific design that I am quite partial to [watch this space for more details!]. Designing T's by the way is fun but a bit of a faff. Essentially anything complicated is out, so you have to keep it really simple. Unfortunately my brain is hardwired complicated [which explains perhaps why I have four bloomin' useless degrees to my name!]. I don't expect to make money from my T's - indeed I'd be more than happy to break even. But I'm one of those people that think you should do things with ideas rather than have them still-born. Whatever!



26/07/09: Feeling tender today, so took the full-susser out to play. Didn't feel like doing much, so headed over to Caterham but my legs had different ideas about the ride to my head, and just carried me on and on. Bugger! Ended up being out for a solid 2.5 hours, playing in some woods. Not that much fun in one sense, as the track was covered in fallen trees and branches, so a bit disjointed. Has potential though, and just needs a few more riders to open it up and it should be OK. The Klein as mentioned is a reliable old bike.... never mention the reliable word! This week I had; slow puncture, HS33 brakes that wouldn't retract fully, my anti chain-suck plate rammed into the tyre [it hasn't moved in 13 years, so why now!] and some wibbly spokes.

The spokes were wibbly last week, but my LBS wanted £50 for a new rim, £50 for spokes [????] then VAT. I'm a little tired of spending money on bikes at the moment, so I looked a bit more closely at the rear wheel. Turned out that all of the non-drive side spokes were wibbly. The rim ran true, so I got my trusty spoke key out and did up each spoke a 1/6th of a turn each until they regained tension. If it didn't work, no loss. However, I managed to get tension back into the thing without the rim going out of true, so a bit of a bonus ball there!

Also this week I intended on buying some new MTB gloves. But again my financial head remembered that in 15 years of mountain biking I have yet to buy a pair of gloves that last more than 3 or 4 rides. My current gloves are from a rock-climbing shop and have lasted a good 10 years. So instead of going to a mountainbike shop I went to a bijou garden centre and bought the best leather gardening gloves they had. £15 for good quality leather. OK they are a tan colour, but they worked very, very well on the bike. Indeed they worked better than expected; I'm a great fan of exploring new trails. One I spotted today was good for 50 or so metres, but narrowed to less than the width of a tyre and was covered in brambles. Needless to say my legs and arms got cut up, but at least I was able to grab hold of these horrid plants and just move them aside. The trail, needless to say, didn't actually go anywhere new. D'oh!


31/07/09: Eek! Just signed off on another t-shirt for production. This time an MTB specific one just for Surrey mountainbikers. This is a pre-procuction image - and to be honest I'm not actually sure what colour the final t's will be as the printers had run out of green, so chose another for me instead. I'm oddly happy with that, as they know more about printing and colourways than I do.





1/8/09: Sneaky ride out on the Tassajara. Took the Garmin sat nav thing with me to play with. Totally ruined the ride for me. Spent the whole time pressing little buttons and looking at the display. Never again! Interestingly coming off Reigate Hill on the bridleway I've always figured that I'd been doing 35mph, possibly even 40mph. Now the sat nav indicated a maximum of 23mph off-road, but the little road section afterwards that I've always ignored I hit 26mph. I did 22mph in the bomb hole on Colley Hill! Another reason not to take sat nav - takes all the fun out of bragging doesn't it? "Hey I ride far, far slower off-road than on it and I hardly travel any distance at all."

2/8/09: Where to go to today? Couldn't decide. Read in the paper yesterday that James May is building a Lego house at Denbeighs estate, so decided to have a look at it. Rode over, couldn't find it so rode on up to Ranmore. Climb from hell that one - just goes on and on. No technique to it at all; just spin away for a mile or so [illegally on the footpath of course - the bridleway up is impossible]. Up the top had a play in the gravel, then a quick spin back to Box Hill. On the way up some roadies zipped past me just before the zig-zags. None of them uttered a word, and they all literally brushed past me at twice my speed. So I thought I'd see if I could hammer up the bridleway and pop up at the top before them. Success! I beat the whole lot. I was a sweaty, gasping mess, but by Billy Bollocks I did it. From there I followed the North Downs way back, and had a play in the new secret singletrack. My 660mm bars were fun amongst the trees.

Saw lots of roadies out and about, and a few lone MTB bods. No big groups. Lots of dog walkers, and to a man they were ignorant miserable bastards - the type to let their dogs wander under your front wheel even though I'd slowed and given them loads of room, even a cheery hello.



8/8/9: I've been reading a few other trail blogs of late, and my word aren't a lot of them [mine included] a lot of self centred drivel? I'm guessing that not many people are that interested in what a random stranger, or group of people, did yesterday - unless you are that person or are in that group. So from now on this page is going to get thinned down a little and will no longer be a weekly post unless something interesting turns up on a ride.



30/08/09: Well, where do I start? Been away on a 2 week riding holiday in Belgium; the Ardennes bit. The house we rented in Petit Haloux [near La Roche-en-Ardennen] turned out to be on one of the posted mountain bike routes they have there, so it was ideal for moi. As I was unpacking the car and assembling my bike, a steady stream of cyclists rode by. Top stuff! In 14 days I managed to fit in 13 rides of about 15 miles duration. I'll not say that the riding was better than the UK, as it wasn't by a long stretch, but the differences made it interesting and not a little worrying at times.

Why was it not as good? The Belgiums seem to look at mountain biking as they do any other activity in life; to be undertaken in earnest with fun a secondary consideration. The rides can be long, use a lot of roads, yet at the same time completely ignore the literally millions of acres of forest in the area. So no singletrack then. My wife wanted me to do the race in Houffalize, but I pointed out that the 50km ride was for 9 year olds; the men did the 100km or 125km variants - so you can see that they are into endurance type rides [note that 15,000 cyclists entered though!!]. So the rides are long, use a lot of roads, and if there is a hill in the way, go straight up or down it. However, one can always be creative and use a map to generate ones own ride? Yes? Er, that's what I did and each and every time I came a cropper big style.

1. I went out at dusk one night. The house we were on was on top of a 400m hill and the day was still very light. I rode off for 10km essentially downhill, turned around and back into the forest. It was pitch black and I had no idea where I was. I fitted lights the next day, and ended up using them 3 times afterwards just in the forests even though it was perfectly light outside.

2. One off-piste ride went along a ridge then down a gentle slope.... that gradually sloped more and more until it was just about walkable but certainly not rideable. For 200m at night in the dark. On one side was a virtually sheer drop into a small river.

3. After 12 days I came into the forest from a different direction and noticed some signs featuring men with guns. I worked out that it was legal for men to be out at night shooting things in the woods. At that stage I was wearing full UK camo gear..... Soon changed to an orange top. And yes, I did meet some hunters and no they were not best pleased to see or hear me clattering away down the trail. I saw 14 deer that night, all running in front of me! I bet the hunters didn't see any.


4. Off-piste took me down a just rideable run deep into a valley. The ride down took less than 6 minutes. The walk back out took me over an hour. Oh and at the bottom I had to cross one of those rickety Indiana-Jones style wooden bridges. One slat actually broke on me. Mind, the stream was only 2" deep, so not that big a deal....

5. The trails may be made of mulched rock about the size of your fist. On one ride one incident left me with 14 punctures after I'd hit a section at 25mph. I had 12 patches with me. Another hours walk home - in the woods surrounded by hunters.  Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the riding. But you have to adopt a different mindset. Embrace the quiet roads, the fireroad climbs and the points where you have to walk and you are rewarded with some stunning views, excellent beer and strong legs. They have some big hills there. I go back every year now, so must be keen [more so as I am from a Welsh background, having lived near Betwys-y-Coed for ten years]. The areas that the Belgiums can ride, bearing in mind they get 3 months of sheer cold, with a proceeding 4 months of hunting activity, means that they've adopted a different style of bike and ride than we have. Having to carry your bike negates against full suspension, as does the primarily ancient road or drover based trails. Full suspension bikes are getting more popular, and so the trails may change, but for now a 100mm hardtail more than suffices - especially with some fast summer tyres on. Personally the trail centres in Wales offer a better ride, but Belgium offers a different experience. If you are a freerider, then don't bother going but if you enjoy cross country and are fit, then give it a go - you'll not be disappointed with the Ardennes at all.



And yes, that is an old Vistalite VL400 - turned it on after 9 years, and it still worked! OK for emergencies like I found myself in, but a tad limited otherwise. The sign "4" on the post is the marked route, and this is an essentially random post on the trail. If you had decided to do the route in the opposite direction, then soon you'll miss one of these little buggers and end up lost, even with a map. Sometimes these little signs may be placed high up on trees. You have been warned!

The Belgiums also seem adicted to a paste called Speculoos that you put on toast [or pasta as the label suggests]. It is essentially those little coffee biscuits you get, but ground up in an oil. We tried it for 2 weeks - wife liked it, I thought it OK. Europe as a whole is also fundamentally expensive; a bit like shopping in Waitrose all the time.



31/08/09: Back home in Surrey and I'm surprised at how noisy the M25 is. Also the ride once again leaves me with cuts as I pass through the brambles, but I'm happy. There is just something good about riding singletrack as against fire roads. Pity about the noise and the trail traffic after quiet Belgium, but you can't have it all. I've finally realised that my trusty Klein is an old design best left for high days - so I'm getting on with the Pace RC303 build. Well I would if eBay was working as a sales tool - very quiet at the moment, and I am just about breaking even with it. Huh!



6/09/09: Very pleasant being out on the bike today - temperature just right for me. Noticed that there was an odd mix out and about; lone riders like myself, or enormously large groups with nothing in between. The groups seemed to consits of between 8 and 20 riders. Personally I don't get the idea behind these mass group rides. I've done them, both on motorbikes and as a roadie. Looking at the groups out today [one of which had lost two of its riders so was steeped in confusion] it seemed to me that unless you have a strong leader and a sense of what the route will be before the off, then chaos will follow. It took me some time to negotiate one such group of disparate souls; the youngest seemed to be about 18, the oldest 70. The youngest blasted off, then spent some time waiting for the slower members to play catch up. The slower members seemed to be having the most fun as they were riding at their own pace. The fast ones just looked plain bored. All were on "green with envy" bikes [one on a Turner which must have cost an easy £3k to build] so they had cash to splash - so why not just each have an ordnance survey map and follow a set route, meeting up at certain spots? A bit like mountain bike orienteering? I can't see how they were doing it to be sociable or learn new skills as they were so spread out - those in front and those at the rear were actually having solo rides anyway.

Fair enough, my Billy No Mates style can be a bit boring at times, and I have to carry a fair bit of kit by way of spares, but some of the people on the group rides today looked as though they'd just got to work on a Monday morning to find a late scheduled all day meeting about time keeping or how to maintain a tidy desk. Only the old guy on a full susser Marin looked as though he was enjoying himself. Nope, I don't get the idea of these "comfort blanket" riders at all.

However, I can see the point of being sociable in a cafe, learning new skills from other riders or being around somebody spending a wad on their bike [I'm all for spending money on bikes!]. With these group rides could the leader not think of something better to do then have a whole bunch of people play follow my leader? New triail skills, teach people how to map read, or organise some sort of "beat the clock" competition where each person rides against their own set pace? No idea, but just stringing people along an essentially random route with no other purpose than a ride, or making people wait around all day, seems a bit boring and pointless to me.

Ooops; pontificating again. Out on the Tassajara and I hit a rooty section near Reigate that I've always been wary of before. Didn't like it at all on the Psylo forks. However, these Fox jobbies I have meant I hit the first section with some trepidation, and quickly realised I was being a numpty. The forks just rolled over them, so I let go the brakes and went for it - even hit the gnarliest sections for added effect. Must say modern components, if carefully chosen instead of relying on magazine reviews, do the job well. You don't really have to have any skill to ride a lot of stuff these days - just hit it full on. Braking is one area I think things could be improved upon, as now I think that the suspension and tyre guys have got the upper hand. I've lots of different brands of brake fitted to my bikes, and most are a bit wooden in feel but do the job of actually stopping very well.

I've also been looking at these telescopic posts out there. I love the idea, but none of the products available actually seem any good. They are heavy, wobble a lot and look terribly fragile in the UK gloop. At £200 a pop they seem awful value for money. To my mind if USE are not doing one, then they are to be avoided!

Oh and hats off to Steve Peat for finally winning the championship. Never met the man, but he seems a good guy.

I keep looking at the Tassajara and thinking of fussing with it; you know the story - wider handlebar, different tyres etc.. However it just does what it was designed to do so well that to mess with it to make it slightly more comfortable for little bits of a ride seems daft. Nope, I'm going to stick with the head down, arse in the air & narrow handlebar ride and just use it when the trails deserve it - i.e. nice, dry and fast. A pity that eBay is being such a tart, otherwise I'd channel my sales into new bits for the RC303. But it looks as though that one is going to be a hellishly slow build. Life is hard!


13/09/09: This was one of those days when events conspired to allow for a longer ride than normal. Indeed events were such that I tentatively suggested Guildford, and it was accepted. Furthermore we had a third party join us - Stuart, who alarmingly set a stunning pace up the chalk face of Colley Hill. However he soon settled down into a normal pace, so we stopped worrying about him being Superman in disguise. Anyway, the trails were fine, the weather was good and it wasn't hot so we got there in good time [2 hours] - good time considering I took a few wrong turns as I'd not ridden that way for a good 7 years. Newland's Corner was the same as ever; old men on Harley-Davidsons and bank managers on Santa Cruz bikes. The chips were good, but the coffee insipid and the burgers vile - think cheap and nasty event burger, and you get the picture. After having ridden in Belgium I missed the excellent food and beer selections that they have in the cafes. Also, why put the car park between the cafe and the view? Surely it should be the other way around? But there was a good crowd there, so I suppose the cafe is only serving a demand? No idea, but they could try a lot harder to offer decent food. Turning around and heading back was as bad as I remember; looks flat but is deceptively uphill so that you are always slogging away in some ridiculous gear. And that climb up the face of Box Hill was a killer - glad we stopped at Rykers for a drink and a look at the motorcycles before the off. [And I still have the willies going down Box Hill - the thought of an off on all that embedded flint...]

It was also amusing to note that some of the mean, tough bikers we saw at Newland's Corner had been hard enough to actually ride their bikes as far as Rykers. I'm a motorcyclist at heart and managed to put 50,000 miles on my Bandit in under 5 years [whilst still owning a car!], but even I can see that riding 10 miles from cafe to cafe is a bit lame. No wonder they all had fat guts. I'm just jealous....

Figure on us having done about 80km, with two cafe stops, and 5 hours out on the bikes. Quite a startling average pace for some middle aged men. Not sure we'd want to do that every week, but it is nice to know we can. I used to mentally beat myself up for not being able to do bunny hops, or any other skill promoted in the magazines, but now I'm more than content to be able to just be out there doing some cool miles. I'm also becoming a little more realistic in my appraisal of bikes. I used to think that expensive bikes were key to riding, and that anything cheap was a waste of time. Wrong! The key to riding is riding; expensive bikes are a luxury that you can happily do without. [Note that this rule does not apply to cars - so if anybody out there has one of those new Maserati GT's that they want to dispose of for free, then please, please give it to me!]

David's Kona held up well and proved itself to be a worthy trail beast. Always stated that you only need 100mm and a hardtail frame around these parts - anything more is just show boating surely? Sure I'd personally chop the fork in for a 90mm Fox, but ultimately that's just for personal aesthetics more than anything else. Only on the uppity bits did I have an advantage - my bike probably weighs 4lb less than the Kona, most of which is in the wheels so it accelerates better. Going down there is absolutely no performance difference at all. And that is slightly annoying as I have £400 worth of Fox forks and a 180mm disc v. his 160mm affair. Indeed my new forks vibrated more than my old Pace RC36 jobbies - so much so that my fingers wibbled and wobbled off the brake levers. [Having said all this, I may actually be blaming the Fox forks for a fundamental flaw in my bike design. I made the bike to fly uphill and along singletrack - as such it is relatively light with some flat, narrow handlebars. Not an ideal machine when pointing downhill! A bit flighty then. But as 50% of our trails are along the tops, 25% climbing and only 25% descending then I'll stick with it as it does work very well where I want it to.]

Please note that in no way should the above statement be used against me when I roll out my Pace RC303 with a set of lardy 140mm forks, high ride bars and 203mm discs!!

And kind of well done to Jensen Button for, er, coming second. Looks good to go now doesn't he? Glad I didn't have time to watch the race, as it looked really boring, even by F1 standards. Not convinced about Button as World Champion though - seems to me he's going to win it because everybody else can't be arsed. I mean his nearest rival could be a grandfather he's that old now. F1 has kind of lost direction if Brawn can be in this position. Seems a nice enough guy, and I want a Brit to win, but he's not in the same league as a Hamilton now is he? Put them in identical cars, and nobody would bet on Button winning other than his dad. And even then he'd put more money onto Hamilton to cover his losses! Personally for me Hamilton is the man; he is by far and away the best driver of this generation - even better than Kimi when he can be arsed to drive properly, which is quite rare these days.

By the way, have you seen my new t-shirts?


17/09/09: Well there you go, I've followed F1 for over 25 years now and each year it got more and more ridiculous. In-fighting was OK, Schuey cheating was kind of fun at times as Damon Hill and Villeneuve were pretty boring competitors, but for the past few years the races being decided behind the scenes did me down. You'd watch a race on Sunday, or read about it on Monday, but by Wednesday somebody else would have actually won it - and then a year later yet somebody else actually won. It wasn't helped that the races themselves got more and more boring - I know the cars only ever go around in circles, but I can remember 2 or 3 races in the past that were fun to watch [generally these had Mansell driving - I used to almost wet myself when he was on the boil]. And now the Renault thing? To be honest I don't know why they are moaning; it's been done before, but by the driver acting alone so not a biggie for me. Senna and the funny faced German did it all years ago. These guys are pretty skilled drivers, and if they want to stuff a car then I'm pretty sure they can do it within an inch of perfection. Some of the team owners expressing shock are just doing it to get camera time I'm sure.

Nope F1 is just boring. It's kind of like a day at the office - a lot of back stabbing, bitching and moaning, then a manager comes along and there is a pointless reshuffle of some sort. Where's the joy in watching it? As for it supposedly being a technological marvel, who frankly cares? You can't see the technology, or even appreciate much of the time how it works, let alone really be that interested in what the latest widgets do on the cars. Let them all have engines up to 4 litres, but no driver aids and great big fat tyres. Make them drink 5 pints of strong ale the day before, and ensure they are up all night chasing skirt. Ensure none are vegetarians. Never ever let them attend meetings of any sort, and driver contracts shall be no more than half a page. Ensure that they all engage in at least one other dangerous sport during a season. Hate to say it, but Kimi harks back to what a driver should be like - brilliant at times, but either plain pissed or hacked off the rest of the time. Kimi seems a strange guy, but I bet he's more fun at parties than Damon Hill, Coulthard etc..



18/09/09: I'm always moaning about magazine product reviews. Today I got the latest MBR - a UK mountain bike magazine that I quite like. Inside they gave a 2010 Fox fork a 10 out of 10 rating, and went on to explain how much better it was than the 2009 Fox forks. They gave several - several I add - reasons why the 2009 Fox wasn't that good. Er, didn't all the magazines give the 2009 Fox range a high rating also; for being perfect trail forks? Apparently the 2009 forks weren't really that good, and had several essentially major design faults, so we should all go out and buy the 2010 version for near £800. Now I don't doubt for a second that the new forks are anything other than brilliant, but how so that last year's were always a bit, well, middling? That this years are so much better? I guess they can't say that for 99.9% of riders last year's forks were better than they'd ever need, and that this year's forks are better than 99.99% of us will ever need, so really only for riding God's. That in reality most of us have no clue as to what we do on bikes, so would be happy with some old RST elastomer things! I've got a £400 set of Fox forks on my bike, but gain virtually nothing speed wise going downhill around here to people on £70 Rockshox. A little less arm pump certainly, and I can pick and chose different lines compared to the simpler fork, but who cares about that when somebody has just kicked your butt all the way down?

Go. Kiss. My. Ass!

I rarely buy products tested in the magazines - I've been bitten too many times in the past with quite frankly shitty products [Quasar forks take note]. I go for what I see people riding on the trail, bits I've spent ages researching or what is not reduced in the summer LBS sales! Instance; Specialized bikes for 2009 got rave reviews, and I like the look of them so seriously considered an Epic. Yet I understand from talking to bike shop guys that the 2009 range was pretty much a bad dogs dinner and LBS's are having trouble shifting them. Instance: Marzocchi forks - when they are reviewed, they get good scores yet who stocks them? Many of the new hydroformed bikes get praise for having a light frame, yet read between the lines and some get sent back for torn frames. Yes; a torn frame! These things are essentially large diameter coke cans - you want to ride one of those? I put a dent in a Boardman frame with thumb pressure alone. These are meant to be toughty puffty mountain bikes.

I'm not really sure where bikes are heading in design terms these days, as they seem to be following cars - i.e. getting heavier each year, and just tweak old suspension designs from years gone by. I know you can spend £5k and get a 22lb full suspension jobbie that would have you grinnning from ear to ear, but most bikes aimed at working stiffs seem to be around the 30lb mark and never quite hit the mark on product tests. My Klein is 29lb, is a 20 year old design, so where is the product advance? OK the Klein was an ecclectic piece of kit, and only works going uphill, and was slagged off mercilessly even when new, but people are still using them as their only rigs - I never see early to mid 1990's Marins, Pro-Flex or indeed Orange bikes out and about. Dunno what I'm trying to say here now, but you get my drift!

If you are in the market for a new piece of kit, talk to guys on the trail locally or pop into your LBS. Just use the magazines as a bit of entertainment, otherwise you'd just end up chasing your own tail if you took their advice to heart. And don't jump in on January 1st, 2010 and buy the latest bike or bit of kit - wait a bit and see what the trail users have to say [blogs can be populated by bitter old gits like me, or by the product designers or marketing people]. Most people these days ride Orange bikes..... I've still got my Orange after 15 years, and I know of people who go back to them year in, year out. 'nuff said.

Oh and on eBay I've seen quite a few people advertising the 409 RockShox Pike for £200 or £250. Get real people - these were only ever £250 new, and most on eBay are the dumbed down manufacturer OE fit versions. And what is it with people paying out over £300 for a set of boggo basic used Fox forks? You can get them new for £370, so why pay almost that for some of 2007 vintage with unknown provenance? There seems to be a desperation for used forks on eBay at the moment. This is hacking me off as I'm in the market for some used forks, but it's looking as though I'm going to have to stump up for some new ones. I seriously do not fancy paying out for a single average level component what some people pay for a pretty decent trail bike. For £500 I could have a weekend in Paris or Iceland.


20/09/09: Heavy head cold today, so no biking for me. Looking at the above few paragraphs one can tell that I'm not a professional writer - lost track there a bit. What I'm trying to say is that the MTB magazines seem more tied in to the needs of their advertisers than do, say, the car or motorcycle magazines. A car magazine will review a car, and put into print their views of it. If a new model comes out, then they will compare like with like and say if the new one is better or worse. The MTB magazines seem to just review the new gear, then go on to say why last years was bad even though last year they may have been singing praise to it. They seem very much tied with moving product. It is this retrospective slagging off if you like that annoys me. And this is why I'm still riding my old bikes - I have the resources to change, and buy new, but each year it turns out that bikes have niggling little faults that were not made apparent in early tests. I was bitten quite early on in my MTB life, where I spend thousands upgrading forks over a period of about 5 years. Each year the new forks made no difference to last years [Manitou by the way.....], and so I'd wasted money again in a pointless upgrade. Indeed with my original RC36 bike, I changed virtually every component except the frame within 2 years. Now I wait a couple of years to see what pans out. I'm still upgrading every year, but my upgrade will be to an item that hasn't really changed specification too much over the years. Something reliable in other words!

The only bit of a bike I like to change regularly are the brakes. I'm always upgrading those. In my world brakes are the one thing where you can always have more. Currently I'm up to a 203mm on the Klein and a 180mm on the Tassajara. The Pace RC303 will have the latest Avid's on - and will be changed next year again! I spend silly money on brakes, but have never regarded any of it as wasted.

So what appears to be reliable? Rockshox last, as do Fox. Again Orange bikes seem excellent, and the Marins tough although I've seen the odd fatigue crack on swing-arms. Specialized keep going, but seem to have lost the plot recently. Kona I don't see too much of out and about. Shimano I cannot praise enough [just bung the rear mech into the dishwasher once a year, and they last for ages]. And this brings me on to Hope - their wheels just go on forever. I've a front wheel that has done something like 35,000 miles and I've not touched the bearings in all that time.



21/09/09: The Pace RC303 build starts. Even though eBay is being a tart, and I'm not selling stuff, the coverse is true for lots of other people as well, especially if they put up silly end times when nobody is on-line. So I've been able to get a pair of barely used [allegedly!] Rockshox Pike 454 air forks for just over £200 - which is about £70 to £100 less than if they'd ended the auction about 4 hours later, and £200 to £300 less than some new Revelations. As these are heavy old beasts, I've been looking at Stan's rims with Hope hubs to shave some weight. OK 400g or so - about the size of a coffee and a muffin from Sue's cafe. But these things are important! However I can't work out the pricing from Freeborn - £314 seems OK, but do you have to buy rim strips at £20 each as well? Seems a bit mean to me if you do.

This will of course be my fifth, frankly of middling quality and dubious provenance & build, mountain bike. I should stopp faffing and save up some money and buy a Turner or Santa Cruz and be done with it all. Five bikes is 3 too many. Until next year, when I see a fancy bit of shine on eBay......

And yes I am getting hung up on bike weight again. Really I should lose some mass from myself, but the morning Starbucks with cinnamon swirl is just too much temptation. Easier to spend a bit more cash on the bike than do some exercise.....




23/09/09: Oh dear. It sounds a tad arrogant that I have 5 mountain bikes doesn't it? In my defence: My Orange Clockwork I bought new in 1995 as a qualifying present to myself, and it now has over 40,000 miles up. It is part of the family now, and perhaps worth £175 on a good day. The Klein Mantra I bought new in 1997 - that one is approaching 20,000 miles of use. Again there isn't much value there at all, probably £300 as a bike, or £400 as parts. My Cheetah Fastest Breed I bought as a frame for £70 and built up from a bunch of bits off eBay or I had lying around. It probably cost me £500 tops and is utter rubbish - I use it as a toy when out with my 3 year old. My fourth bike, the Tassajara, was another project - this time to bring my riding into the new millenium. In essence this is my first newish mountain bike for 12 years.... It cost me £900, but has the same specification as most £1,500 bikes so I'm happy with that one. But now I admit to greed; the Pace RC303 is a bit of bling to replace the Klein as my winter bike, trail centre rig and holiday thrash mobile. Of all my bikes, this one will be the one that broke the camel's back - I'm going to stop for a few years after this as I don't need anything else bike wise. A newer full suspension rig would be nice [please God give me a Turner!], but in all honesty I like my bikes now to be reliable and not require any faffing around. I just want to get out and ride, and the thought of servicing a whole bunch of bearings and bushings makes me shudder. Besides, the 140mm hardtail format is just so friggin' cool! Bring on the beanie hat and some knee length cammo shorts! Where's the nearest skate park!



25/09/09: F1 again.... yawn. Jensen Button is being the Big Man, stating that he's going to race to the wire. Yeah, right. No hoper for a decade or so, then lucks in with Brawn and is heading to be default World Champion so he's going to push against Bazza is he? I don't think so. He's going to be like a Granny on the bumper cars.



27/09/09: An eventful little ride. Three of us out, and as seems to be the case these days Stuart the Hare beat us to the top of the first climb. Bit unfair this one; we had the legs to beat him, but farmer Giles had ploughed his field, and neither David or myself had any grip from our tyres. How Stuart found traction I have no idea as his rear is slick. Anyway we went over the tops to our Secret Singletrack, where we let Stuart the Hare plot a route. Ah. Perhaps we shouldn't have as he had an off - looked like a puncture wound to one leg, and a total fracture of his mobile 'phone. He seemed oddly happy that he'd been bloodied. And some miserable git has been putting trees across the paths - why we have no idea as the wood is essentially unused, and a handfull of cyclists using it isn't going to disrupt the wildlife there. After playing we hit a short downhill section through lose flint and dust, only for myself to take a 'susser line on a short-travel hardtail. D'oh! I didn't quite fall off, but it was close as I went sideways for a bit and I kicked a big babyhead into David. Teach him for skimming my rear tyre downhill. After that things went quiet until a deer ran out in front of me - I slowed rapidly, but David being David and half an inch off my arse he locked both brakes apparently. He he! All good fun. I have no problems with him skimming my tyre - I do it to him all the time. Its good to ride with somebody of similar abilities - although he is miles ahead of me for more technical riding, but I have bigger brakes! We all arrived home within seconds of each other, all having pushed for similar amounts of time. 

A good little 2 odd hour sprint.

And, er, well done to Jensen Button for driving slowly 'round and 'round for an hour and a half. Top show for not pushing or doing anything interesting!

My Pace RC303 now has forks [Pike] and a chainset [SLX], so the build is well and truly off. I'm beginning to suspect that to beat David on the down bits I'm going to have to up the ante and use my newly found 140mm to the full - and definitely some super wide carbon bars will be fitted.

It also looks as though I may have sold all of my stock of the Camper van t-shirt, which is excellent. My wife still can't get over seeing people in the town wearing the things, but I enjoy it. About to sign off on another, so watch this space. Oddly enough I've advertised for ages, but it seems that all it took in the end was a bit of street cred and urban talk. Cool.



30/09/09: What is it with Virgin and the internet? Hate Virgin! Two days it has been out. I thought it was my PC, so stripped it right down. It doesn't quite work now.

Anyway, I'm going to write F1 2009 off as boring. JB I like, but come on; he's not championship material for me. Playboy, all round good guy, but the champ? 2010 on the other hand looks interesting for the Alonso v. Hamiliton battle. Very close drivers those two. Raikkonen will be interesting to watch - got to be a match for any driver in history when he can be arsed. For me that makes him interesting. Vettel has lost the plot, Webber is a mountain biker at heart so I love the guy to bits as man. Button will be a no show in 2010. Kubica may well be up there with the Gods though.

Just bought some carbon matrix bars from CarbonCycles. They look nice, but a tad narrow at 600mm [I went for weight loss - mistake number one] and seem to have no room to actually put grips, levers and pods on. And - my biggest gripe. Carbon matrix? Looking inside they are aluminium with perhaps a single weave of carbon on the outside for decoration. I'll see how they ride before I'm too critical, but I'm already thinking of some Salsa Pro-Moto bars at 715mm. The dork in me disn't realise that they came in a 31.8mm width. D'oh! Once a twat, always a twat.

Signed off today on some more VW Camper van t-shirts. Went for a 5 colour design, so big money. I could have bought a decent mountain bike instead.... But at least I sold a Surrey Hills t-shirt to one of The Competition, the good old Muddy Moles over in Leatherhead. I'll probably see the guy hanging from a tree branch with the t-shirt around his neck.



6/10/09:  Nothing to report on really. Ride wise it was uneventful - we just had a good blast around Headley that was neither so hard that we end up hating the bikes, but neither so soft that we feel like Southern Jessies. The trails were unbelievably dusty - so much so that I lost traction under braking a number of times; most of them heading towards barbed wire. Thanks Farmer Giles! But today we have rain, so hopefully if it stops soon the trails will be free of dust and gravel. Only issue on the ride being that my Tassajara is getting grumpy; some squeak from the back brake [looks like wheel bearings - so much for the quality of Fulcrum Red Metal 5's] and the bottom bracket may also be at fault. External bearings really are a whiz of an idea for mountain bikes, eh?

Had a chat with a guy running a 24lb trail bike. He had some £120 CNT Composite bars..... and figured on pretty much replacing most of his bike annually due to wear and tear. Er, something seemed amiss with the story as he only does 30 miles a week, and we figured perhaps his LBS may be ripping him off a tad. £120 to service his forks? Personally if getting below the magic 25lb means a massive increase in servicing costs, then it seems a bit silly. He seemed a nice enough chap though.

Looks like I may have cobbled the Pace RC303 together using bits ripped off other bikes. Discovered that one bike has Hope Pro II hubs on - aha! they can be converted to 20mm for the Pike forks. So off came the wheels, transmission and brakes from that rig. Only problem being that the rims are Halo jobbies - think heavy and you get the picture. I worked out that a single Halo wheel weighs more than the two wheels on the Tassajara. So the bike looks set to come in at 32lb+, which is 7lb too much for me these days. However, wife wants a new bathroom so my new wheels and brakes will have to wait until I can squeeze some money out of the kid's piggy banks!

Actually I've just weighed it - even with the horrid, lardy Halo's on it comes in at 29lb - the same as David's Kona or my Klein. I'm guessing by splashing some wedge on it, sub 25lb is possible even with SLX components. Hmmm, interesting..... To be honest I'm a bit surprised at that, given that the Pike's are pretty huge.



7/10/09: Playing with my bikes tonight - changing tyres for winter, that sort of thing. Decided on a whim to weigh the Clockwork. Now I've always figured it for 26lb, possibly 27lb at a push. Huh, 30lb it came in at. What a Munter! Really surprised that it is so heavy as it certainly never rode like a Clydesdale. Puts things into perspective to be honest. My Pace RC303, with 140mm up front, 2.3" tyres, hydraulic brakes and 27 speed transmission comes in at the same weight - and here I've bunged some big wheels on it, so it is perhaps 3lb overweight at the moment. Bikes have certainly progressed? I've been slagging new bikes off a bit due to my misconceptions about the performance characteristics of old ones. So apologies to all those designers out there... Old bikes are shit.

And on a different topic, I've always moaned about big groups going out. You know the ones; 10 or more riders all in a line. However, again it would appear that this was, in part, based upon my ignorance. I've always ridden alone - not out of choice, but mainly because people came out with me who were "mountain bikers" but who turned out to be Big Mouths. None of them lasted more than two rides. Of late though riders who do come out turn out to be, well, proper bikers. I've been beaten on more than one ride - actually I'd state quite happily that I'm beaten more than 50% of the time. [Then only nasty cunning brings the ratio back into my favour.] And this grouping seems to act like a little mountain biking magnet - others start to join in. I'm not sure where the critical mass is before we become a Big Group, but I'm certainly not a solo rider anymore, but instead part of a formative group. From now on I can't slag groups off can I? Oddly enough the rides as a result are far, far better in terms of riding enjoyment but I'd say worse in terms of trail discovery. Solo I'd happily take that odd looking trail even though I'd be 90% certain it went nowhere - it would be worth it for the 10% of times I found something new. We all know that what is on the map often doesn't tally with what we actually find on the ground. But now I just want to maximise the ride and minimise the down time in finding new stuff out. Little bit competitive perhaps?



8/10/09: On a different note; recycling domestic food waste and water butts. Pain or what? I have two worm bins in my garden and like a good egg I recycle a lot of our veg, coffee grounds etc.. Fine for a year or so... then the rats move in. Lovely. You are not supposed to put meat in as that attracts them. Er fine, but what eats the waste? Worms. Are they not raw meat to a rat? Big, fat worms fed on fresh vegetables. So from doing good I now have a rat problem.

Secondly these water butts; good or bad? Firstly they have to be empty in the winter otherwise when the contents freeze they burst and leak. Fine, so I wait for the spring to fill them. And wait as we get so little rain at times that the things never ever fill up. But the thing that really gets me is that I have unwittingly placed in my garden two areas of standing water. What loves standing water? Mosquitoes. So now I have a mosquito problem from trying to save water.

And why are these things so damned ugly? We have ugly domestic waste wheelie bins the size of a small car, an ugly brown recycling bin the size of an early Range Rover plus two massive worm bins, along with two hangar sized water butts. All in hideous plastic. Why do we have to put up with so much crap? Oh! I forgot! I also have two large plastic boxes to put waste paper in. Plus I take a weekly trip to the recycling banks with plastic and glass bottles, the volume of which fills the boot of my car. Families in Uganda or wherever live in less volume of space than we as a typical family in the UK have for our weekly disposal of rubbish. I'm not an old man, but I can remember us all having a small bin for a weekly rubbish collection. Where has all this crap come from, and where has our water gone?



11/10/09: No news, nothing exciting - just a jolly good blast for a couple of hours with Stuart. I'll have to refer to him from now on as our Attack Dog as he rips the hills around here. Not too muddy considering the rain, but slippy in many sections due to last week's dust now being damp. I was slipping a lot, and moaning about it until I saw Attack Dog spinning up and slipping a good 6" sideways going uphill. So I stopped moaning and just got on with controlling the slides. This was easy enough as I was on my sit-up-and-beg Mantra. Boy did that feel heavy after a couple of weeks on the Gary Fisher. But I soon got into the Klein groove [Mantra even!] and realised why I like the bike so much. When the riding gets slow in the winter it's such an easy beast to ride it makes it all a pleasure. And that 203mm Magura venti disc is overkill - braking downhill the front end was sliding and grabbing. Personally though I'd rather be over-braked than the other way around [bye, bye Hope brakes for me!].

Lots of miserable horse riders and walkers about. Why do something that makes you miserable? Beats me.

The Pace RC303 has stalled as a build - need some brakes and I'm getting confused as to what to buy. Magura BAT or Shimano Saint? And my Fulcrum wheels that I've been bitching about? 2 seconds adjusting the cones sorted that one out, so no biggie in the end. I'm back to liking them again!

Boy is mountain biking fun! Love the riding and I love the technology behind it. But today I fully realised that no matter what kit you have, poor tyre choice levels the whole lot out again. Myself and Attack Dog were slipping all over the shop, even on level ground.



18/10/09: Easy ride out to Headley Heath with Kona David [KD]. Actually I lie. He had fire in his belly and pushed hard all the way. I was glad I'd chosen the Tassajara which still wears its semi-slick tyres with pride. For the first time in ages I was actually sweating when I got back. Glad I'd only gone out in a t-shirt then, even though there was frost on the roofs here. Out just over 2 hours, 16 to 18 miles covered so not a mad fast pace - although we did stop for coffee and cakes. Nothing to report other than we saw a strange apparition; a herd of roughly 20 mountain bikers migrating slowly towards the Headley bomb holes. Beautiful it was - they moved as one, avoiding conflict with the other sweaty bikers at the cafe. Bizarre thing to see.

Well done to Button. Not the most interesting season, and I must say he deserved the championship even though history may well forget him as a driver. I like him, and I like to see a Brit win, but there is something ineffective about him. Hamilton, for instance, always seems to drag 120% out of his car. Button can do that, but only if. And why are Toyota looking at Raikkonen? And why are Toyota in F1 at all!?!

Pace build comes on. I've been faffing about brake choice for ages - looking at prices, dealers and web reviews. Did my head in. Today I got bored and just ordered a set of Shimano SLX discs. Job done. Worked out that I've still got another £500 to spend before it is finished - frankly that is depressing. Mad Dog bought his rig for £500 and I can't see my having a better riding experience with the Pace than he does on his Kona. For one he's a better rider than I. And secondly I really am Mr Wuss these days. Jumps? Nah, might get hurt. Slippery Roots? Let's walk. Ooo, look a hill - let's go around it where it's flatter.

And there may be a move on my t-shirts as the VW Blog wants some as a prize give away. Interesting!



21/10/09: The Pace RC303 lives! OK it is cobbled together from several bikes, but I've got it up and running. Only ridden it in the street so far and it is.... disappointing. Seems too small*; I guess a bit like a BMX bike not the long wheelbase mountain bikes I'm used to. I've already knocked my knee on the stem. It turns quickly though, so I am expecting goodness when the trail goes all twisty, but backache when it points upwards. I'm probably being too hard on the poor dear, as I've not ridden it on the trails yet and it takes few miles to get into a bike - especially as I've not ridden a bike with this short a top tube, and 140mm of travel ever*. Going to be very odd indeed. One never knows; it may change my riding style entirely - move away from being Mr Smooth to Mr Agressive. Pity that I'm going away for a holiday now, as it means I can't ride the thing for ages. Boo hoo.

The Pike forks are really smooth - but blow through their travel pretty quickly, so I'm going to be faffing with air pressures from now on. I was sad this morning and weighed the bike - getting on for 31lb now that the brakes have been fitted, so it's going to have to lose weight pretty rapidly, although with the big Pike fitted that may be quite hard to do. Back to Magura's one day perhaps? Figure there's at least 4lb that can be trimmed from the wheels. Halo are tough, but my rear wheel alone weighs something daft like 5lb with the tyre fitted. One reason for this being that it has 48 spokes - it's virtually a solid disc wheel! It could do duty on a tandem, and even then would be overkill. As mentioned above, I'm a bit tired of spending money on bikes so the weight loss problem will have to be resolved next year.

Has anybody noted the price of used bikes these days? Prices seem to have fallen through the floor on many models. I'm taking a guess that this is probably due to the currently enhanced cost of bringing used bikes back up to speed - just to change the transmission to SLX is going to hit you back over 200 beer tokens, and a front fork service just shy of a ton. Add in a new saddle and handlebar, and whatever used bike you're looking at starts to appear poor value against new. I saw an RC303 go for £700; that's for a bike that perhaps cost almost three times that figure to build up, so it looked like a bargain. But again, by the time you've changed the knackered transmission, had the forks and wheels serviced [and on a bike likely to have been used hard, some new rims may well have to be added in], fitted new tyres to replace the shagged out ones, and some other bits and bobs, then you may as well hit the 0% finance on a new £2k model 2010 bike. Although having said this a lot of newer bikes are making compromises on specifications, so even they are beginning to suffer.

* Update: I've just checked against the Pace website, and my frame is a small - not the medium that Evan's said it was. Bastards. However, I then measured my faithful Orange Clockwork - the bike I've done in excess of 40,000 off-road miles on in perfect comfort. Ahem, exactly the same size as the Pace in all dimensions, so in theory the Pace should be ideal for me. Well there is one essential difference; the stem on my Orange is a barge like 135mm where the Pace is a much more modern 90mm. I then checked as to what frame size I should be buying - er, small as I have short legs so not much in the way of standover room. So in a roundabout way I've ended up with the frame size for my size - a medium would have me catching my nads all the time. Oddly with the 90mm stem I've bucked the trend with these bikes as most people go for either 50mm or 70mm. The 70mm would result in the same reach as a medium frame anyway - what these riders with 50mm stems experience steering wise is beyond me. Uber fast? My Tassajara is just plain long, and the Klein plain wrong! Perhaps I went off-piste size wise with the Klein, as it is quite a large bike? I've had people over 6 foot tall ride that thing in comfort. Anyway, the Pace is shorter than my other two main bikes by a good 70mm, which should be fun. It has to ride like a BMX surely? How exciting.

More bizarre than the Pace having the same frame dimensions as the Clockwork... Even with a 140mm fork fitted and riser bars, the handlebar level is exactly the same as the Clockworks. And that's only got the original RC36 on with about 50mm of realistic travel. Further the Pace and the Orange pretty much weigh the same, and I regard the Pace as being overweight! The Orange I still use for trail use and never once in all 15 years of ownership have I moaned about it's weight. I've moaned about the Klein's mass lots of times, yet it is lighter than the Orange by almost a bag of sugar. Perhaps, just perhaps, all these years I've been riding bikes that have just been too darn big for me?



1/11/09: Sorry - been away in the Netherlands and Belgium. Essentially eating, drinking beer and being darn lazy. Highly recommend Nieuwpoort for a week.

Ah, today. Three Amigos out on what was a very wet morning. I had jelly legs, so those other two sods really flew. Somehow when a man is down others just sense that and put the boot in. Ah well, I'd do the same! We did the Caterham run and I chose the Klein as it had the best mud tyres on. I say "best" as I didn't have much choice; it wears the Panaracer XC Pro, which I hate absolutely. They are good in a mud, but catch anything off camber and they just slide away. Actually that is a lie; on the rear of any bike they seem brilliant, but on the front are absolutely pants. I hate them on any bike and any rim combination. But I'm cheap and can't stand splashing out folding stuff on black, round things. Decent tyres these days are hitting £40 an end. For things to ride through cack in.Ouch!

The climb up to the top was a git. Not only did I lack energy, but being the only one with rim brakes the clag slowed me down chronically. I actually had to pedal downhill later on. KD as usual had no problems with his £500 Kona, whilst my rear deraillieur wouldn't make any shifts after about 5 miles. I generally was either in bottom or top, which really didn't help at all. On the tops the wind was atrocious - one little downhill section I was going well and just got hit dead on by a big blast. It slowed me from about 15mph to standstill. Needless to say the rain was horizontal. At the Secret Singletrack all the wind had obliterated the trail heads, so we continually got lost and walked the bikes perhaps a mile through the trees. That was a bit pointless in retrospect.

But, and here is the rub. We had an absolute blast. I couldn't see where I was going as my glasses fogged up, KD and Attack were soaked to the skin, and I was stuck with a choice of either a very easy gear, or a very hard one. We were all laughing like kids at it all. Covered in mud, trashed transmission and soaked to the skin we couldn't care less. In the end we were hitting the biggest puddles full on. Of course it all helped that it was a relatively warm day, but we all felt as though we'd achieved something. I guess being in woods in the wind wasn't the brightest thing to do, but it was somehow right for the day.

Bring on the winter!



3/11/09: Oops, I owe an apology to a posting I made above. Turns out the big group I saw at Headley were the Moles. They tend to be organised along different lines to the big groups that I don't like. The Moles don't do organised - they just kind of morph each Sunday. I can appreciate a group that just forms ad hoc - you can't turn people away! I still don't get those big groups that cannot go out unless they are a big group. There are a few around here that do it, and I see lots when cycling in Belgium. I quite like the little Redhill grouping we have, and can see the merits in being pushed or pulled along by better riders. I can also see the merits in solo riding - one big chill out zone that one. You also get to meet more people when riding solo - being part of a big group is just a defensive measure against the unknown surely?

Also I'd like to clarify my position regarding the £500 bikes. They are good, and consistently beat me on the trails. So why don't I buy one? Simple; I like a certain level of quality - a feel to my bikes if you like that can only be had once you start spending a little bit of cash. I'm an SLX kind of man. To me a lower spec is just too clunky, too heavy or just doesn't look right. XT and XTR is just silly money and I couldn't justify the expense. I've had cheap forks, and they work well - but I like the liquid feel that Fox or Rockshox give. Wheels - just round things? Why bother? Well go and ride a Hope hub, then come back to me. I love their clickety-clackety noise when freewheeling, and they last for ages with virtually no maintenance. Cheap saddle? You like saddle sores then? And as for carbon fibre - bring it on! I've only the one set of bars made from the stuff, but they are really comfy so I'll be buying more as funds allow.

Nope. £500 bikes are good, but there is more to the hobby than just riding. I spend just as much time fettling my bikes as riding them, and wouldn't have it any other way. Fettling to me involves a certain level of appreciation of what you have.


15/11/09: Insane is the best way to describe today. Lots of beer last night, and still getting over my cold of the past two weeks. Torrential rain for the past two days. Oh, and I've fitted a fat downhill Maxxis Minion tyre to the front of my Klein [that was all they had in Halfords]. So did we stop local, and do a little ride, playing in the mud? Nah, we did a stupid long one of about 32 miles or so. Over Reigate Hill, then cut right and on to Epsom Downs. From there Langley Vale, Stane Street to Box Hill, then back via the North Downs. All in the mud and deep standing water we've got. Not to mention the number of times we had to negotiate the fallen trees. And slick chalk [Colley Hill into Reigate was a blast - no traction whatsoever, and we had to walk down]. For the first ten or so miles we were both engaging in either rear wheel steering when the back lost traction, two wheel slides when they both lost the plot, or just plain good old "need new pants" action when the front lost it all. Attack Dog fell off a few times on the down bits, arriving home with blood running down both the front and back of one leg. I suspect he needs to look at how he tackles down hills, as I think he's putting his weight over the front? Whatever! I need to look at energy consumption, as coming back from Box Hill I was shagged out; just put the bike on the granny ring, second gear on the block and spin away slowly. Shagged out seems to be my default status. But then I am 93 years old.

There was only one mechanical, when Attack Dog fell off, his gears and rear brake went all wibbly. Took half a second to fix. Must say, given the conditions it was remarkable how effective the bikes were; totally reliable. But we both wax our chains, and I think that helps a lot. [Although I'm sure my wife wonders what I get up to with my bikes after I've lubed them, as there is this sticky white liquid all over the place...]

As a guide to how knackered I am, I once did 300 road miles in 3 days. I am as tired after a single ride today as I was after my 300th then. Road riders; poofs!

My new Maxxis Minion tyre is at once a bastard and the same time utterly brilliant. Initially it was covered in release agent, so slippery as hell everywhere - I ran off the track at one point, in a straight line under braking into gorse. Once that cleared off it was obvious that when gravity assisted the tyre just grips, grips and grips. I overtook Attack Dog going down onto the, er, Downs. He's not exactly a slow rider. However, on the road they totally drag - like riding 4 gears away from where you should be. On the trail they are not so bad, but the sheer width means you are pushing stuff out of the way all of the time. This is a negative, but if I stick with it by the time summer comes I'll be flying on slicks. And today I loved having a big 203mm disc up front - no idea why, but it gave me real confidence everywhere. It may just be the uber grip of the Maxxis, but stopping was just brilliant. I may well try this combo on the Pace [which has a new 660mm carbon bar now by the way...].

And that Steve Peat crud guard is rubbish. Deflected precisely zero muck today. I'm still digging trail crap out of my eyes.

Lots of bikers out today; all friendly and chatty. Redhill & Reigate in particular seemed friendly, if somewhat slow. Expensive bikes mind. Average age of bikers out today seemed to be late thirties to mid forties. Where are the youngsters? Why don't they want to get covered in crap, ruin their bikes and injure themselves?

Got home after 4 hours riding.... with a frozen Trout sticking out of my backpack. Good note to end on!



16/11/09: Watched Top Gear last night. Apologies to my neighbour who works on the show, but wasn't it, in the words' of James May, cock? These days to me Top Gear is a parody of itself - essentially we are watching three men make in-jokes and take the piss out of themselves and us. Why us? Because we pay them to trash things and visit exotic locations doing so. I like May and Clarkson [what's the point of the little one again?]. They are intelligent [well, two of them - one couldn't even make it as a DJ], and Clarkson can often be the funniest man on tv. But last nights show was just dull - especially the interview of Mr Really really Boring Australian Man. At least with a 'series' of TG you know it'll be over in 6 weeks....

And! At work we had a meeting in the summer; 7 men, one woman. The woman commented on the previous evening's TG. None of the men had seen it, or were even aware it was on. I think the show is past it now, and the three of them should walk away from it. Little man into oblivion opening Wilkinsons shops every two weeks, Clarkson into retirement writing novels and May onto television greatness presenting and producing a new Tomorrows World. I'd watch that, but I can't be arsed with TG any more. And do you know what? I bet the presenters can't either.



18/11/09:  Had a look at my Klein last night - my knees are still hurting after Sunday's ride, which is not right. Noticed that the Maxxis is the ST version; i.e. for downhill competition use only. Super Tacky, hence why it was such a bugger on the road but gripped very well just about everywhere off-road. I'm kind of in love with the way it gripped, but will save it for high days and trail centre use. So I've ordered another set of Maxxis tyres, this time the new Aspen for the rear and an Advantage for the front. Should be better! I don't mind being tired from a ride, but I was tyred from that one!! I wanted to go for the OE ones fitted to the Kona, but there seems to be limited choice on the web. Maxxis and Continental seem to be where it is at the moment with bike tyres. I'll probably get a 2.4 Rubber Queen for the Pace.

F1. Bye bye Kimi - we'll not miss you as you were a bit of a useless bugger. Fast when you wanted to be, but boring the rest of the time. I'm sure the guy is an absolute blast to be out on the lash with. Button with Hamilton? Right. Hamilton will nail him at every Grand Prix, as will Alonso. Going to be a funny season in 2010. Figure on each race being a three tier affair. McLaren out in front, some middle runners, then all of these new teams going around and around swopping last place between races. Hamilton should get his second championship.



22/11/09: Well, what a difference tyres make. Black round things? Nope, not any more. Last week I was on a Super Tacky downhill jobbie, and it ruined the ride. Absolutely killed it. Just too sticky and I couldn't push it along; like riding a 50lb butcher's bike. Bear in mind how wet it was as well last week, and you can see how much trouble I was in. I couldn't face it again, so this week I changed to a Maxxis Aspen on the rear, and a 2.1 High Roller on the front. Stunning. Absolutely brilliant combination and I loved every minute of the ride [18 to 20 mile circular route along the Tops & golf course that everybody does - just follow the tyre tracks if you want to do it!]. Tad extreme weather wise, what with the howling wind and horizontal rain, plus a lot of mud from the past few weeks of near torrential rain - but my tyres managed it very, very well and by the end of the ride I had utter confidence in them. I was so confident that coming off the top of Reigate hill, down the line with the slippy tree roots, I actually considered an overtake and was zipping the rear tyre of MD. Zipping as in literally almost touching it. And he doesn't hang about. Remember that in the dry on the Panaracers on the Pace - a bike designed to go downhill fast - I was walking the same route. This week, on a 90mm hardtail with flat bars and cycling glasses covered in cack, the bike flew. Personally I hate changing tyres, but I've no complaints here at all. £50 well spent, and you'll not hear me say that often!

So if you want to know what tyres to run around here, go for an Aspen on the rear with a High Roller on the front for the winter - chance to an Aspen front come the summer. Job done. OK today both myself and KD were slipping all over the place, with front and rears letting go often. But the Maxxis seem to be very predictable as to when they go, and to an extent the rear lets go under torque loading - so just back off a tad. Speeds were low enough that front slides just ended up being funny. Climbing on the Aspen could be slightly problematic, but it is a cure for all the lazy summer rides we've had. It's a tyre to finese upwards, and one to treat with respect in the mud going down. So perhaps if you want a bit more confidence, go for High Rollers front and rear - but that would be less fun!

Actually scratch the above. Just go for either a Continental or Maxxis cross country based tyre of either 2.1, 2.2, 2.35 or 2.4 width and you'll be happy. Avoid the 40a tacky ones unless you have massive thighs.

Not so sure that KD enjoyed himself so much, as he was moaning about his legs being cold, but then he is only a youngster from a different generation so you have to make allowance for his extreme youth. Where is the Dunquirk spirit? Bit of National Service wouldn't have hurt these kiddies. I also think he was a little underbraked with the 160mm on the front; a 180mm from www.discobrakes.com would help there. Coming off some of the bigger hills I think he reached the limits of either his brakes or tyre grip. A tenner well invested in my opinion - and note this is the only change needed to his Kona. Got to say that seems so far to be an utterly brilliant bike choice for the Surrey Hills. Not taken him down the rocky run to the Downs in Epsom yet - that may stretch his forks to their limits. May - that Kona just does what it says on the tin, and MD has hidden reserves. But all credit due, an utterly inspired bike choice - a change to a slightly bigger front rotor is in essence no biggie, and more down to a 6 foot rider than anything else. £10 is nothing. In no way am I criticising the bike here - a new rotor in my opinion just means that the front one was slightly underspecified for extreme winter conditions, or that the rider is learning to push a bit harder. You can't blame Kona for that! Indeed one could argue that the bike is doing totally what the designers intended it to do; for the rider to learn how to push to and beyond the limits of the bike. Possibly to move up the range in future. Utterly brilliant rig to start off with.

Didn't see too many mountain bikers out and about this week. Two groups of about 5, plus ourselves, and that was it - and we were on the popular Circle Line this week. Few walkers with their dogs, but none of whom strayed more than 100m from their cars, so were dispatched with ease. Lots of horse riders though, who all commented on how mad we were. Right. I'm on a mountain bike under my control doing 15mph tops, whilst you're on a ton of meat with a brain the size of my fingernail [both horse and rider sometimes] that can do 40mph through trees - an animal that can be frightened by its' own eyelashes. Imagine going for a drive along the M25. Instead of you driving, you let, say, your cat. That's how sensible horse riding is to me.

No real need for full suspension at all around here for the next few months. Just added mass to carry around, and extra maintenance for the following week. I was glad I'd given the 30lb+ mass of the Klein a miss, and gone for the 26lb Tassajara. Do what the motorcyclists do - keep your nice bike for the summer, get a hack for the winter [although with £500 Fox forks, hack is a bit misleading!]. Mine is a 90mm variant, but once I get some new wheels, then my 140mm Pace will be the weapon of choice. Learn your winter handling bike skills all over again and have some real fun. You know you'll be fitter and faster come the summer.

Can you tell I really enjoyed my ride today??

Can you?

I think that the main reasons for the ride being good were simple: that it was us against the elements and we won. We found grip where there was none. It got cold in the storm, yet we were generating high levels of body heat. We rode around the failings of our bikes - largely slipping gears on 9 speed cogs, but mainly tyres that lost grip on turns, under braking and when on the power. And oddly although I couldn't see where I was going thanks to cack on my glasses, some inner eye found the route and I went faster than normal. Truly, out there today it was biking Nirvana. No need to travel to far away trail centres, or paw endlessly through the magazines for something new to buy, or feel guilty that we are not high jumping freeride Gods. The weather provided a fair challenge, and we met it head on.
 


22/11/09: Another change made to the ride concerned the use of an energy drink instead of water. The one I used today had a 7% carb content and seemed OK - I feel quite fit now, and didn't experience any burn during my ride. I had a Naartjie flavoured one as I bought it from the South African shop. No idea what that means, but it tasted fine to me. 99p is probably a tad expensive, but as it is only once a week I'll not moan too much. This was supplemented with my usual healthy kick at the cafe on Headley; black coffee with a sticky cake. Then choccie cake [thanks Inge!] followed by sausage banjo when I got home. One can only go so far with health food in my opinion. The drink was it.

So this week, a bit of thought and £51 invested resulted in mountain biking once again being a joy to do. Just shows doesn't it? Shows what exactly I have no idea, but it seems an appropriate thing to say here!

Last week I was wiped out for a good three days, and felt that me and mountain biking were drifting apart. Sniff, sniff. That Maxxis High Roller ST killed me, almost literally. It is an addictive tyre for downhill use, but elsewhere steer me clear of it please. Add in 30+ lb of Klein, and it was a hard day out. Today I was just happy for hours afterwards. Light bike, good tyres and strong legs. Now at almost 9pm I'm calming down - back to looking through the magazines and feeling dismal that I'm not cyling Kilamanjaro or such! Moto here is to avoid the magazines, as really we have an awful lot on our doorstep. And the energy drink thing? Well, I've eaten well but my body still craves steak and beer. Its going to get the beer certainly, but wife has cow flu or such so no steak tonight. Save that for another day.

Long live the rain. Long live Maxxis!



26/11/09: Saw one of those Porsche Panamera's today. I've seen them before, but slow moving - figured them to be ugly, fat and pointless cars. However, I played cat and mouse with one today and I must say that although I was in front all of the time in my £300 Bangernomics Mobile, so he lost the race, I was at the same time seriously impressed with the way it moved without appearing to move. The thing looked effortless and I want one now - even though it was still seriously ugly and has a fat arse. Think Austin 1800 landcrab for the new millenium. So tonight all needless body parts will be on eBay to fund the purchase. A kidney, half my liver, an eye, hair even and some of my more obscure children - all got to go to raise a measly £90k. For a fat, ugly and largely pointless car!

Entered into the Evan's Dorking bike ride.... should be fun.

No new bike purchases of late. Got to save for either a new Panamera, or another £300 piece of crap. Whichever comes first really.



5/12/09: Did the Evan's Bikes "Ride It!" today over at Leith Hill. Not ridden there for years, and really enjoyed the event - friendly riders and staff. Would happily recommend it to anybody. The little ride up and over Ranmore was pointless though, so next time I'd just cut that bit out. It was hard just for the sake of being hard.

However, I do have comments about the area. Firstly when wet it eats pads like nobody's business. Attack Dog burnt both front and rear sets in 18 miles, whilst I ate my front set. Note this wear isn't due to braking - it's through the sandy muddy puddles they have. Just riding through them trashed our brakes. The downhill bits we did on the day just required a single stop at the end. Attack Dog's transmission also stopped working, possibly cack in the rear cable. And the mud; my, my, my. Slippery as molten butter. OK I had a semi-slick rear, but my front slipped an awful lot as well, and every rider had trouble to degrees. I don't actually see the slipperyness as a negative - I'm a mountain biker, so love all that. But it took all my experience to keep upright, so a novice may well struggle. As for Leith Hill being the best riding in the Southern Universe, I'd argue against that. It certainly has a good choice of trails, but to be honest the back end of Box Hill is pretty cool, as is the area around Ranmore Common. Us Redhill people don't suffer too much in comparison - we just have to cycle a few more miles is all. Certainly our bikes will last longer.... Not that the loss of a few brake pads is a biggie. 4 sets from DiscoBrakes only cost £22, but Attack Dog wasn't happy coming off the final descent into Dorking with metal on metal braking. [His LBS wanted £15 for a set - yeah, right, as if.]

24 miles done, in slippery, bike trashing conditions. This is what life is all about!

Interestingly we did it on old school hardtails. Lots of others were on full suspension rigs up to about £4,000 in value. We stood out as a pair of muppets on bikes of value less than £1,000 each - Attack Dog in faded yellow late 1990's Toyota gear, and myself in a purple windbreaker from the early 1990's [and when was the last time you saw purple out on the trails?]. My Tassajara has 560mm flat bars and 90mm of front suspension, whilst AD has some Rockshox Dart 2's on the front - not exactly cutting edge, but emminently functional. So. Question: who appeared to suffer the most? The suspenders left us for dead at the start, and rushed off into the distance. We were passed by a lot of people. But by about 6 miles [the climb to the tower] we started to pass them all again, eventually going past groups that started way ahead of us. I'm not saying we are brilliantly fit riders - far from it. But pitched against suspension rigs in horrid conditions, the clever choice was for simplicity of design. I think we made up enough ground to catch people that started half an hour before us. At the end of the day, the ride trashed bikes wholesale, and the conditions favoured finesse over brute force, so what value carrying around an additional 5lb of mass? I also suspect people from outside of the area had brought all of their gear with them as some were carrying packs of horrendous size. Ray Mears would use less to kill and eat a moose than they had with them.

I've not a downer on full sussers - I love mine and relish the comfort of it, and the speed that it can carry, and it is usually my bike of choice when riding the unknown. But try pushing the buggers through deep mud, then up long relatively smooth inclines, then down smooth singletrack and the sheer mass starts to act against them. Moto here: poor conditions, keep your good bike in the shed! 

Oh and some geezer with a beard put us all to shame. There we all were struggling for grip up the long climb, and this bloke from 1897 came past with drop handlebars, cantilever brakes on blade forks and slick tyres thinner than my finger. He didn't do it slowly either. He flew past and we never saw him again. I swear to God he was smoking a pipe.

On tyres... My Maxxis Aspen rear can be a handful, but today was as slippery as things are ever going to get and I thought it superb. Low weight so it picks up fast, and when it spins up I just apply a dab of rear brake Rossi style and it all works happily. It doesn't clog, but it does skid easily on a greasy road when trying to stop. But that's not a huge issue as from my motorcycling days I'm a heavy front brake user - I just use the rear for stability. With a smooth pedal stroke I can keep it going up just about most things apart from wet grass. Nope, Maxxis tyres are where it is at for me.



6/12/09: Blinding! Excellent ride yesterday, so last night decided to give today a miss - especially as have no pads left on the Tassajara. Today woke up to driving rain, so the trails are going to be trashed. I'm also suffering an allergic reaction to something, so look as though I've been in the ring with Tyson. Actually that's a lie. If I had have been in the ring with him, I'd be dead. Perhaps more that I've walked nose first into a wall.

Looking back on yesterday, I've already decided to buy a bike carrier for the car. I think Leith Hill would be cool in the dry, or in the frost. Lots of people slag it off as a wet weather ride, and I can see why. It's a wonder people don't refer to the place as Pad Eater. Also there is a bit of me that riles against following the masses, even if they may be right. The trails looked well worn, as did the faces of some of the people who live in the area when they saw hordes of mountain bikers passing.



9/12/09: Ooops! Slagged off the ride for wearing my pads out. Ordered some new ones, then realised that I've had those pads on for 5 months in some really fowl conditions, and in reality only one has worn down, and not right to the metal. I'll replace them as my DiscoBrakes ones have arrived, and they were only £22 for 4 sets. Wonder how long Attack Dog has had his on?



13/12/09: Billy No Mates today as both riding partners absent. Now, some of the web sites that I look at now and again would have it that going out on a ride on your own is more dangerous than being an 18 year old black male dealing crack cocaine in Brixton. Utter tosh I say. If you want to go out on your own, then go out. I had an absolute blast today. One of those rides where you start off and think "why am I not out Christmas shopping with the kids?" Muddy, cold in the wind and with a sleety rain up on Reigate hill. I took the Klein with its' comedy downhill tyre, and that was a chore going up. Add in traction loss in the mud, and initially I was unumpressed with being out and about. However, I soon settled into the pace of the Maxxis; slow up and along, let it run where wants when going downhill. As I was on my own then I could play this game all day long. Must say that the Maxxis Super Tacky does a stirling job going down things. However, even though I've been a mountain biker for almost 20 years I felt guilty looking at the front churning things up and spitting mud all over the place. And on the road it is noisy as hell. Think of those times you've been somewhere cold and a guy drives past on studded tyres. I'm thinking of the high dessert in Oregon, but I leave the exact location to you. The noise will be the same.

As a rough guide as to how hard the Maxxis is to push along, I always have a large breakfast and this leaves me full for hours. Indeed so full at the start of a ride that the first climb is usually close to a vom sesh. I usually have a cake, but more out of habit than anything else - plus I like cake, so there. Today half way through the ride I had to have a huge energy bar as I was so hungry. Same again at three quarters. When I got home all I could think of was food. That Maxxis is a very hard tyre.

Not going to bore you Dear Reader with my exact route; up and down some hills to Epsom. All very muddy, and once you've seen one Surrey hill you've kind of seen them all. Not especially deep mud - that slippery, shallow stuff that provides precisely zero traction but is immense fun. Not many mountain bikers out and about - saw three other than myself. Two I saw when I was fixing a puncture; neither stopped to offer any help. Why are people like that? Two roadies did; one stopping to have a little chat. Almost makes me want to take back everything I've ever said negatively about roadies. Almost. Saw lots of dog walkers - each one of them miserable sods. One especially miserable and rude pair; an old woman and her retard 40 year old "stay at home" son. He was dressed in full cammo gear. Needed at the top of Reigate hill. Not. No idea where the mountain bikers were today - I didn't duck and dive, picking obscure routes. OK some were a bit remote, but I hit the bridleway that follows the downs for a few miles and saw nobody. I didn't even see anybody going over the golf course singletrack, and I always see people there. Indeed the whole ride was a bit of a paranoid affair, as if overnight following a triffid attack most people had been replaced by inane dog walkers in chunky jumpers and wellies.

Lots of horse riders. All of them friendly. One day, perhaps some time in the distant future, I may have to revise upwards my opinion of horse riders.

The only glitch today was that there is one section past the golf course that is a fine piece of singletrack. It ends though at a very muddy short uphill stretch that can catch people out, and they stall. To the right somebody has made an alternative route. I saw no reason to take it, but I'd emptied my Camelbak bladder into my own and now that needed to be emptied, so I turned off. Yeuk, wish I'd not bothered. Spike hell - punctured both a leg and a tyre. Fixed the tyre but couldn't be arsed with the leg. Horrid short-cut to be avoided at all costs. This folks is why I take these routes on my own. I'd soon end up as a permanent Billy if I took everybody on my 3 hour rambles to nowhere.

I had a peek at some mountain bike web sites during the week. Did it during work time, so when anybody came into the room I had to quickly change over to some extreme porn site - didn't want anybody thinking I was wierd now did I? Is it me, or are all mountain bikers starting to dress the same? We look like fishermen on bikes. All dark greens and a bit tribal. I took umbridge to this, so today I went out in a shirt and a light green Timberland smock. Looked a bit of a twat admittedly. I'm not convinced we all have to wear dark colours or bright red only. May hit the shops this week to find alternative styled clothing for my rides. Knowing me I'll get bored, decide on a whim to go into a charity shop and come out in pink leg warmers, a Kermit green windbreaker and a tu tu.

You will no doubt know that I have 5 bikes. Blah, blah, blah, Surrey rider, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Now that I've built the Pace RC303 up [another shonky old sales parts bin special I hear you cry!] I was wondering what to do with the Klein. Today I found out - use it as my Billy No Mates bike when I fancy exploring stuff. The Klein runs well on those off days people have. Reliable old stager that just does stuff without faffing about. On thing I realised from riding the Klein is that I really miss the traction control system that the Tassajara and Pace have. Controlling the rear end up the muddy hills on the Klein is a bit hit and miss. Traction control I hear you say? Well why else have they fitted rear discs to mountain bikes? Certainly not for braking. I find dragging the rear disc in the gloop helps control the torque from peddaling, meaning I can keep going and eventually clear most horrid situations. If the rear starts to spin up, I will calm down on mashing the pedals but that initial little spin is better controlled with a bit of rear brake action. The Klein has a rim brake - no real finesse there. Kind of on or off.

Being on my own meant I had to entertain myself; this I did, amongst other things like talking to myself, or singing Lady GaGa songs, by making up Tiger Woods jokes.

Tiger Woods has a new sponser. Anne Summers with a product called the Runaway and hide anal rabid rabbit.

Luckily for Woods, now that he has finished his job as a golf player he has a new one already lined up. A blow job. 

Always wondered why he kept playing those PGA tornaments? "Player Gives Anal."

Tiger Woods was never fond of a hole in one - he was much happier with a hole in two.

Tiger Woods had the best caddy in the business. She was always willing and happy to lubricate his 4 inch shaft.


I also made up a shipping board game. Now where did that come from! I've no interest in board games - although I did enjoy thrashing next door's nine year old recently who thinks himself a chess whiz. He figured himself a whiz as all the other parents in the street let him win. I'm not built like that. I'd forgotten how to play, but at heart I'm a nasty bastard [you have to be to do my job] so decided to hammer him. Sorry, I digress - not the best digression either; hammering nine year olds.



15/12/09: No joy at finding some new gear to wear. Only looked in Redhill JD Sports so far though - didn't fancy looking like a lycra clad sweaty Chav, so didn't buy anything. Did pop into Oxfam for a book; fancied a read whilst waiting for my son in Costa. Now perhaps things have moved on, but since when has Oxfam been in the £3 for an old paperback market? Used to buy one for 50p or 3 for a £1. At £3 for some old piece of tat I'd rather go and buy a new book. So I did. So there Oxfam. Loser! I also bought a bike magazine whilst in WHSmiths and noticed that Noah's are doing Hope hoops at £244 a pair. Er, so I rang them up and bought a pair there and then. So from looking for a 50p book, taking umbridge at them charging £3 I actually ended up spending £260 in total. Is that what people call consumerism? Actually I think it is what people call being a twat. Anyway, upshot from looking originally for a new alternative cycling top is that come January my Pace will be wearing some new Hope hoops. Who cares if the kids now have to go without over Christmas - sod em; we all know that mountain biking comes before family harmony.

Now how do I spin this one past the wife?

And the book? Mountain Biking Britain by Chris Moran. Excellent. Has one annoying page where he states that a hardtail is only suitable for non-technical areas, and his bike prices seem stuck in 1996. But, really, the guy deserves massive credit for what he's done. I've written up a couple of local routes, and that took ages to do. How long he's taken to produce this book I have no idea - a long, long time. And I like his dry style - he describes rides as being good if you live in the area, but not worth a drive for. You can tell he's not just downloaded info from trail centre web sites, but has done his research. True, I've a downer on him for mentioning the Muddy Moles and not my site, but I'll forgive him that glaring error.



16/12/09: Not a trail blog issue at all. I just want to take this opportunity to say how much I hate NTL. November through December they run their service down to zero. Often we cannot get onto the internet or receive e-mails for up to 3 days. 3 days. When you 'phone them [and getting a telephone number is a laugh with no internet connection], after 45 minutes some guy in Lahore answers, then proceeds to run you through some moronic checks for an hour; is your modem on? Have you turned your computer on and off? And my favourite is: "Can you read to me the 17 digit number found on the base of your PC?" Really, he asks for such detail when you both know it is their shit service that is at fault. Note that we are wireless, so the moronic questions can only be answered by running room to room. NTL couldn't give a toss. After two hours it is clear that there is nothing wrong with the PC or the modem, so this guy starts running through the whole process again. I kid you not; he starts to "check" the modem [I assume here he's gone off to the toilet]. At this point you ask to speak to somebody that evolved naturally as part of the human race, and oddly enough you get cut off. So you call back, and get through to a guy in Cairo. Clearly there are call centre issues here, but mainly NTL are just fuggin awful.

I hate NTL. Really, really hate NTL.



20/12/09: Billy No Mates again. Really must change my deodorant - or even start using some? Again some websites and magazines will have it that going out on a bike alone is akin to playing Russian roulette with a loaded AK47, but I came back alive and well without incident. OK a gorse bush took a dislike to me trying to ride through it, so one leg is scratched to hell and back, but I'm otherwise fine. I'm guessing that the people that write such tosh generally go out on testosterone fuelled rides with their mates in cammo baggies and body armour, and so may know no better. Certainly if you are going to ride at 100%, and expect to get injured then boy! do go out with somebody. However, the rest of us are pretty sensible and realise that if you are alone, then riding at 100% risk is just plain daft. I know that when I'm out with somebody I'll push a bit harder than normal, or do a few more silly things. That's a Man thing. But alone I'll happily plod along learning my trade craft. That's not to say I make every ride boring, or minimise my risk to zero. I'm happy to fall off, get bruised or do as today and come back with blood running down my leg. Guess that when alone I run at something like an 80% to 90% risk ratio, where that last 10% represents the times where you're out with mates and may be happy to side swipe a tree, or fudge a downhill run, or tackle that chalk path to hell.

And what of those times when you just want to unwind from a week? How can you unwind on a bike when you are pushing the envelope to destruction? Personally I find the solitary ride a key to sanity. I'll not say I'm at my happiest when alone on a bike - that would be sad. Lots of things make me happier than riding a bike, but as I generally only get a few hours to unwind I can't generally drive through New Mexico looking for green chili sauce now can I!! I'm telling you - breakfast burrito, black coffee, silver dollar pancakes and green chili sauce in a truckstop roadhouse. Perhaps I'm the only person who likes that shit, but I get horny and salivate just thinking about it even now. Then there is Niagara falls in the winter. Chicago in the winter. Boy is Chicago a brilliant city. New York anytime, but especially drunk in a comedy club at 3am. Long road trip through Europe. Picking on the kids. Beer and a good film. Doing 120mph on a motorbike through Wales. Get the picture? Sure I like my bikes, but if I had the time and money there is a zillion things I'd rather do. Bikes just happily fill a two hour void. It's not like I send them postcards when I'm away or anything like that.

Yada, yada, yada. Managed to get out when the thermometer was still reading some single digit minus figure, so nice and icy. Up the hill I realised that I'd overdressed and was too warm. Stripping off I was soon wearing just a base layer and windproof outer, with Fox shorts - er, essentially the same clothing that I've worn for the past year. Difference between summer and winter being the position of the zip. Up for winter, down for the summer. So much for technical clothing. I'm happy with a zip. [And I stripped off mid way up the climb. Needless to say some walker appeared out of nowhere to find me half naked and steaming next to a bike. An innocent enough picture, but his face suggested I'd been up to some nefarious activity!]

Very slippery out and about to start with, and I was on the Klein with the comedy front tyre so heavy going - which explains the heat build up I guess. The cold meant that my Camelbak pipe soon froze up, so I was sucking on a slush puppy. Horrid. On the golf course some of the snow had drifted to a foot deep, and I could only get so far before walking. Now that was fun! And I don't mean that in an ironic sense - it really was fun. Riding out the other side my rim brake on the rear just did not function. I'd upgrade to a disc, but the total cost is near £400 as I'd need an adaptor, wheel, disc.... No chance of that happening now is there? And really, how often do we get this type of deep, lasting ice here in Surrey? Once every 20 years? 30?

Saw loads of tyre tracks, but not the owners. As my ride progressed then the day began to warm up, and the snow turned to a slushy mush, which was a bit boring to ride through but meant I went faster. Heading back I saw a few riders getting their bikes off cars atop Reigate hill. Now I'm not one to pass judgement [OK I am] but boy were those guys overdressed. One man had, I kid not, full arctic gear on. He could have survived any extreme low temperature, but I doubt he'd survive the ride to the top of the hill without boiling over. If he decided to disrobe I had no idea where he was going to put stuff as he appeared to be carrying even more clothing in his backpack. And what is it with starting at the top of the hill? All these riders face then is a little jaunt along the tops. Each to their own, and the carpark is convenient, but what a boring ride. I quite like the climb up of a morning, plus you get to blast down on autopilot at the end.

Actually I am misleading you dear solitary reader. I was warm going up, and warm going along. But going downhill I gradually cooled until I had a befuddled brain. Kind of nice - bit like being 90 years old and near a befuddled death I would guess. Except without the bed wetting.

Got back all happy. Until I went to put my bike away. Horrid knocking from the Magura Menja forks, so they'll need a service. Ho hum, LBS do not do them so off to Magura for a £100 strip down. Boo hoo! I'll wait until the New Year though as I've got the Pace to play with now.

Jealous. A neighbour stated that he is off to Iceland in the New Year. As a gesture of friendship I'll lend him a parka for the cold, but I'm pissed that I'm not going. Spent ten days touring Iceland once [Bus, mountain bike and light aircraft] and it is an utterly brilliant country to visit. Fuck all there, but utterly brilliant. Definitely a place to make your own entertainment.



21/12/09: Well, on yesterday's ride I didn't eat anything at all - just wasn't hungry. This struck me as odd as I normally wolf loads down. Anyway, at about 11pm I found out why. Lovely old winter vomiting bug has gotten to me. Up all night throwing up. Lovely.

Snowed this afternoon for a short time around 15:30 hours until around 16:00, when it turned to sleet. About an inch at most. Now what sort of situation do you think we found ourselves in here in Redhill? Do you think people just got on with life? Or do you think utter chaos followed the brief snow fall? Yup, utter chaos. Complete gridlock here. My wife got stuck in Sainsbury's car par - I told her to dump the car and it wasn't until 5 hours later that people were able to leave. 5 hours in a shop car park! Our son was in school 2 to 3  miles away up a big hill, so off I walked to get him. He's 4 and bless him, he walked all the way back without moaning. Indeed he fully got into the spirit of the adventure and enjoyed himself. And thanks to the good samaritan that stopped and gave us a lift down the hill. Whoever you are, you are a star. Only saved us about half a mile, but there is no real path in that section. Many people faced 5 hour journeys home - journeys that normally take 30 minutes at most. Oddly enough my wife normally picks our son up in the car, and gets home around 17:10. I walked there, we walked back [with a bit of a lift for perhaps half a mile or so] and got here at 17:30. Makes me wonder how fast cars actually are in reality. Fair play, two other parents did the same thing in walking home but I'd be surprised if most 4 year old children would happily rise to the challenge. Most would just whinge. Parents as well. I feel quite proud of my little boy, although I do realise that in a lot of countries children would regard a walk home of 2 miles as a luxury away from their daily chores.

A lot of the choas was down to the ice and lack of grip, fair play. I've yet to see a gritter working the streets. Motorways sure, but the A and B roads no. But much of it was down to sheer dickheadedness amongst a few drivers. "Hmm, I'm on a big hill with limited traction so I'll just stop halfway up.Oops, I can't get going again so I'll just get out of my car and walk away from it." I figure also that many commute into Redhill, then catch the train out. Many of these people perhaps live as far away as a mile. Of course they needed to enter the fray didn't they? Or those people going to Sainsbury's for a pint of milk. I bet 50% of the people out last night had no need to be in cars at all. And then there is the sellfishness of drivers. Blocking traffic lights, intersections or islands. Cutting in, or simply not allowing people out of sideroads. All these little ignorances all add up. Last night was probably 40% snow problem, 40% lack of gritters [thanks Surrey CC], but the main being a bit of idiocy on the part of perhaps 2% or 3% of drivers. It also didn't help that at precisely 4pm everybody did the same thing; got in their cars to drive home. The clever ones waited a few hours. I'm not a particularly good driver, or have a huge amount of experience of ice driving - normal kind of UK resident. But, come on; I used to ride a motorbike through the winter, even in the snow.

For instance: our NTL guy complained about how he kept getting stuck. So I felt sorry for him. That is until I watched him drive away. First gear, loads of revs, dumped the clutch. Yup, you're going to get far in the snow doing that my friend. And our neighbour in his MINI - icy road, no grip so off he goes driving one handed with a mobile 'phone to his ear. One careful driver didn't want to block access to the kerb, so happily parked in the middle of the road whilst visiting a friend. Or the woman that got a push up Redstone hill. Again loads of revs, loads of spin. The pushers got her going. I watched her drive away at some speed, wondering how far she would get, thinking it wouldn't be more than I can manage in ten seconds on foot. Less than 200 metres was the answer, so I was almost right. She had a huge slide, then speared off the side of the road. Needless to say she kept the boot in all the time, even when the car finally came to a halt down some poor souls driveway, front wheels spinning away. Utter twat. Her car was a front wheel drive, heavy diesel so she should easily have kept that going with a bit of care. I may be too hard on her though, as modern cars take all the old skills away. Correction - some people allow modern cars to become a substitution for skill. I mean, when you have cars that decide when to turn the lights or wipers on, things are getting silly. Our Jazz even has brakes that decide if you are braking hard enough or not. If you are not, then it brakes a bit more just in case. What's the point of that? May as well have the airbag permanently inflated just in case.

Our road hasn't been gritted, but lots of peole happily drive up it without problem so long as they maintain a slow momentum. KD's dad, my wife, myself, the guy one handed in his MINI, our resident taxi driver, the guy in his Focus ST - we all did it! As did our neighbours builder, lots of postal delivery people and I've even seen learner drivers out and about. Nothing stops the learners. So why can't the rubbish people get down our road? Where have they all gone to? Nice warm portacabin somewhere I'd guess.

Oh and sat nav. Ha ha! The "follow my nose and don't think" nature of those things may also have contributed. The guy who picked us up was actually thinking for himself, and avoiding the main roads. He'd travelled 40 miles that way in just over an hour. People in Redhill travelled 100 metres in the same time. When I picked our car up I avoided the A23 - everybody was on that, stuck going nowhere. Yet, believe it or not, we do have other roads, some run parallel to the A23. I used these and just drove around the big jam - took me ten minutes. By the looks of things in our street, some of our neighbours gave up trying to get their cars home. People are funny. A little thought, a little consideration and you can get by. But then people no longer go out for walks in their own neighbourhoods. Hence they have no idea as to what is around them.

True I'm sounding like a pompous dickhead. But I have two things in my defence that I fully stand by. Firstly this is my web page so I can say what I like, and I disagree with PC mentality. Secondly, well, admit it; I'm right. Last night my 4 year old walked 2 miles quite happily and we were home just 20 minutes later than normal. No biggy in the end. I wouldn't make him do it every day, naturally, but walking did nobody any harm. 

[As an aside we had a visitor some time back. They were stopping in an hotel on the A23 - I live on the A23. They said they'd pop over, how long would it take? 15 minutes guessed I. I live in one town, their hotel was in the next town 8 miles away. Wrong! Hour and a half. Why? Because their sat nav was programmed to take motorways. They went on the M23 north to London, then cut back. Perhaps 30 miles or more. Even if you do not live in the area, a little though may suggest that a journey between two local towns is not going to involve a trip to London first. Oddly enough even though I pointed out their error, even walked them down the road and pointed towards their hotel, do you think they would accept sat nav inaccuracies? Now do you think on the way back they believed me, a local that knows the area very well, or the sat nav and a ridiculous journey home via London? I leave you to guess the answer....... but I'll not buy sat nav over a map.]

Oh yes, NTL. "Not our fault. Replaced the modem, still not working. Your problem." Oh I thought. Bugger. Again until he walked away from the computer and I got it working. Never ever believe NTL. Admittedly our computer is a bit problematic.....



22/12/09: Did you see Top Gear the other night? And? What did you think of it? Oh, getting a bit boring and the presenters are full of themselves? I agree. Top Gear used to be an anorak program for nerds with beards. The Jeremy got hold of it and turned it into a brilliant comedy; two years ago it was the best show on the tv bar none. Now it is a pointless ramble. I can't even remember what was on. The other day I was off sick, and watched some day time tv [boy I'd hate to be a pensioner!]. TG was on Dave. 2004 series and it was very good. Bit of cars, bit of chat, lots of humour.

Stories on the radio today of people getting stuck. Most of them were people essentially getting from one side of town to the other. I feel sorry for people on the Eurostar, or on the motorways or the airport. Or those people ferrying old people or I guess young children [but then why not just use a pushchair?]. But if you're essentially stuck at the end of your own road for hours..... It wasn't so long back that our parents would quickly assess a situation, give up on it and walk back. That's just one generation back. Talk to people of the next generation up, and they'll quite happily tell you of the times they cycled to Eastbourne for the day, or the day the buses went on strike and they walked the 16 miles home. We write them off as mad, but do you think that your parents would sit in a car for four or five hours knowing that they were less than a mile from home? True these same people used to drive for 5 hours to the sea, sit in their cars on the promenade eating fish and chips, drinking tea from a flask then drive home happy and contented. But you get the picture.

Naturally our neighbours from more Northern areas have not noticed the snow of late. One Scottish woman simply said "what snow?" Others have actually taken to seeking out more challenging drives home. One commented that he was disappointed when a light came on his dashboard stating that his traction control had come on. I feel it took some skill away from his drive. A chap I work with heads off to find the deepest snow, sets up a tent and sleeps the night in it. These people I feel know things that others perhaps don't.

And why pray tell is Schumacher back in F1? His ego must be a monster thing to manage. Hamilton quite frankly will eat him for breakfast - and yes, I think Hamilton is probably the best driver F1 has ever seen. Sublime is the word.



26/12/09: Another own goal. Bought some new Hope hubs for the Pace build. Now, I'm very pleased with the wheels - 1.7kg is very impressive. Indeed it is enormously impressive. However, new wheels require new tyres [well, they do in my world!]. I'm looking to go tubeless, so need a kit. My £250 wheels have now cost £350. So my Pace has now hit a build cost of around £1,300. That's £200 more than a new Orange. True my bike will be 500g lighter [big deal!] and have 20mm more travel [big deal!]. But! I've spent 6 months building a bike up, have yet to really ride it, and it cost £200 more to build than an off-the-peg item from a UK bike manufacturer. I may also have built a bike a size too small for myself. And I really also need a new saddle and a shorter stem. And there is nowhere around here to do the bike justice. And I'm getting old and wimpy.

The upshot being that although I've built up a fairly novel bike [if a Pace built around a pike fork and Hope wheels can ever be novel...], I could just have gone out and bought an equivalent specification bike from any bike shop, and from any manufacturer. I could also have just stopped and been perfectly happy on the Tassajara / Klein combo.

I think I may have learnt my lesson now.

Although saying that, I've seen a nice frame on eBay......



31/12/09: Last posting of 2009. My Pace RC303 has now been fully assembled. Spent an hour or so putting some tubeless tyres on the thing, changing the chain for an XTR item bought off eBay, fettling brakes and gears, etc.. Still waiting on my Charge Knife saddle to arrive. Weight came in at just over 27lb, which quite frankly is a bit of a disappointment, but then it is a burly frame with heavy forks. I'll probably chop the forks in for some lighter Fox's during the year, depending how I get on with the Pike's. It seems to ride very well in the street, which oddly is always a good test of how it rides in the hills. 27lb is probably a low weight for a 140mm hardtail, so I shouldn't be too hard on the old dear. It also looks very good - I've bought all black components, so it looks factory.

The XTR chain was a fun thing to fit. Came with a little link pin that you push in, then snap off once the chain is together. Needless to say it snapped off whilst pushing in by hand, so I had to wrangle three-handed with the nub. Tubeless was easy to do once I'd gone down the "two rim strips" route; Maxxis Aspen and an Ardent on the front. May be a bit slippery these days, but there you go - I like those tyres so sod it. Hopefully they'll work well with the lower pressures that tubeless brings? The Hope wheels pinged away merrily on my first ride, but seem to have settled down. Wonder how long the ZTR355 rims will last.... May have to swop them onto the Tassajara, which would be a sensible thing to do.

I'll say it again: building bikes from scratch is a bit of a mug's game. True you get something original to your own specification, but the final price generally comes to slightly more than an off the peg shop bought bike. But then saying that I've bought a few bikes new, and each time within a month I've swopped something out. My Orange Clockwork just had the original frame left within 12 months.... the Klein I chopped out the forks three times in 4 years, the transmission once and the wheels once. I also went through 5 or 6 sets of v-brakes before I went to a fully hydraulic set-up. The Tassajara I built and have not seen any need to change anything at all on it, and still can't. Hopefully with the Pace RC303 I've built a bike that will last me a good few years without substantial alterations.

[As an aside my rear Halo wheel & tyre came in at 3kg - the Hope combo 2.2kg. That Halo really was one scary Mother!]