rothar.com: mountain bike shenanigans. I think I might run with that for a bit until something better comes along.

Finally swapped the controls on the FSR over, it’s taken an age to get the kit together. Gone shorter, but higher rise and I’m pretty pleased with results. The bike is more chuckable, the steering more responsive and it’s still comfy for all day rides. I’m sure that the rapid steering response saved me from at least two nasty skin/dirt & rock interfaces on yesterday’s rides.

Headed over to North Wales and headed for Betws-Y-Coed. Didn’t really look at the (crap) directions I downloaded of the mbwales site, so ended up driving around looking for something which wasn’t there for half an hour. Eventually parked up and popped into the bike hire centre in the Tourist information centre to get some directions – thanks again for the help.

Rode up and out of BYC up to waymarker 59. That’s one hell of a warm up. Must be 1:4 in places. Hooked onto the trail and was soon laying the hammer down. Trying to keep up with some guy on a fully sprung Marin at one point led to near miss number one, two wheel slide to nothing saved only by a quick foot plant and a stroke of luck. The section down to the trail head where the Marin demo was taking place was probably the best bit of loop, some nice rollers which launched you nicely of you hit them right.

Managed to take a wrong turn and ended riding pointlessly up the tarmacked road from the carpark for far too far before I realised my mistake. Then had to turn around and traipse all the way back down. Soon back on track and nailing some good lines on technical sections. The whole thing was over far too soon and I seemed to be back where I started in no time at all. The choice was to stay and ride the loop again or head off to Coed-Y-Brenin.

As there was unfinished business at the latter it was decided to leave BYC for the day and head south. Just over an hour later, full of home cooked cakes, I set off on the MBR route. This was good because I’m not a great fan of the Karrimor/Red Bull long fireroad climb up and I knew I’d be doing that bad boy later anyway.

Enjoyed the MBR, quite a lot of technical singletrack climbing, which is something that none of the other routes I’ve ridden have tended to have. All was going well until about just over half way round where you are contouring round a wooded hill section and enter a really thickly wooded section that plunges you into darkness. About 20 metres in with my eyes still adjusting to the light I just make out something.

Turns out to be a small conifer that has been laid right across the trail. Seems CYB has it’s own stickman. Surely there’s no need. That really annoyed me. Climbing up the bridleway section not long after I had to stop and cool down, it was just too damn hot out there yesterday.

After another slice of cake, a can of Red Bull and a bit of a breather it was time to slog up the hill for the Red Bull run. Those rock garden sections of singletrack you hit after the climb are pretty testing. Rode around the rest of loop, only to have near miss number 2 on a relatively straight, fast section. Not exactly sure what happened, but the front wheel just washed out, and I only just caught the bastard. The top section of the last descend down to the carpark had me off and walking a bit for the first time all day. Just didn’t feel strong or alert enough to try and ride it but regretted it as soon as I was back to the car. Next time. So that’s BYC and CYB dusted so far this year. Machynlleth is next and I’m going to have to combine that with a trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology.

This is pretty interesting reading, I’m hoping that IMBA UK will have the same good effect here too. Chilly has been busy and has a new site that I didn’t know about until Saturday night, the sneaky bugger.

Nice new road wheels from Mavic, but not many of them. An epic Oregon bike adventure. About time some one pointed out the obvious and a comment from someone who should know better.

Well not a disastrous day by any means. Lots of fiddling with bikes however. As much as I love the looks of my old Cook Bros RSR cranks, I just don’t think they’re up to carting my lardy arse round on a singlespeed that I’m increasingly thrashing around. So I’ve bought a new XT chainset for the FSR and swapped the old XT cranks onto the SSer. About the same weight I reckon, possibly a bit lighter now I’ve ditched the stainless steel 36t onZa buzzsaw, but with a nice stiff octalink setup. Now running 32:16, whilst waiting for some new four bolt chainrings to turn up.

Very impressed at how much lighter the new hollowform XT cranks are over the old (not impressed by the 10mm allen key crank bolts). Also not so happy that the day after I install them the 2004 XT versions are unveiled.

Heard from an old friend today after what seems like an age. It’s always cool to catch up with people and find out what they’ve been up to.

Possibly off to Wales this weekend for some riding. Have to see how things go…

European Singlespeed Championship results are now up and there’s a link to them from the event page.

At ten past four this morning my alarm went off. Reality slowly clicked into place as I remembered that the reason I was awake was because I needed to get up to go riding. Following on from the example set my MacPuppy and company up in Edinburgh, Steve M had organised a Manchester alternative to the now infamous Breakfast Ride and it was starting at 5am.

The whole thing was made a lot easier by having prepared all my kit the night before, all I had to do was get dressed grab some food to eat on the way and go. Still it took about ten or fifteen minutes. The ride along car free roads was a bit surreal, but within no time at all I was rolling up to Sale Water Park to find STW forum dwellers Bruce and IJH already there.

Once Steve M and 360 turned up we were off riding down to the Co-op Pyramid in Stockport and back in the early morning sun. For some reason I keep thinking about the way in which the low-light caught the pollen from the riverside plants exploding into the air as they were brushed past. It was a good way to start the day, but not so much of a breakfast ride – I think stopping and eating somewhere needs to figure in the equation.

Most of us were riding one geared bikes. This singlespeed thing is quite addictive really. I might actually be beginning to like it. That’s something that I’m finding hard to come to terms with given my original scepticism. I do need to sort out the current seatpost slippage issue as a priority though.

On a different note I hope that by tomorrow night the FSR will be in a rideable state once more, with the shock fresh back from TF Tuned and with some handlebars on it again. That way a trip somewhere at the weekend with said beast might be a possibility. Not much happening other than that.

Finally finished the write up for the cross France trip again. Read about it here. I’ve been meaning to hook up a link to the NSMB e’zine since Ben showed it to me. Its on here now, so check it out to read about lots of new stuff (like the ’04 Big Hit). I’ve been reading Mountain Bike Review on and off for the last fives years or so. It has its fans and its critics, but I think it deserves a link either way.

2003 European Singlespeed Championships

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Two photos from digitography.co.uk and one from Jed

this dark and dingy corner. Well I’m glad the Germans were there it made things rather entertaining at the finish. This weeks link is for Phaty and the crew.

It was cool to catch up with Biker this weekend, we reminisced over our road trip across France a bit and it reminded me of the first couple of days which were a bit boring by comparison with the latter half of the journey. I did start writing up a bit of an account of things last year, but then my computer hard disk crashed and I lost a load of stuff including that. I’m trying to recollect things again and it’ll be appearing in the Epic Rides section soon. Talking of Europe, I booked my tickets out to Switzerland today. It’s going to be a good to take a bike back out there and ride the slopes that are usually covered in snow.

We’re not ready for the Euro. Apparently. What a shock result.

Read about this the other day. Thought it was pretty interesting stuff, not sure if it’ll take off but I like the ethics involved and the idea of living in something that’s self-sufficient in terms of energy and built out of recycled materials.

Today at work the label printer ran out of labels. One of two people can be blamed for this oversight. Thanks. It was really good fun having to hand write labels for all the goods I received. Please don’t let it happen again. I think I’d rather be bending Huffy’s back into shape if it did…

The FSR has been pillaged and is slumped next to the desk. I have finally managed to get the new riser bars ordered today (it’s taken about two months), so the old ones are off and onto the Singlespeed. The shock is also missing currently waiting to be despatched to Mr Flooks for a spring upgrade and replacement lower bushings. I want a 5th Element shock, but the bike and I are going to have to wait for that. At some point I will have to clean it.

The Singlespeed is cleaned (in the living room tonight) and ready for this weekends action (should that be carnage?). It is now sporting some riser bars (no wider than the fat boy flats I’ve just taken off) so has some rise to the front end and a bit more sweep. I just hope it handles okay, as I haven’t left much time to test it out. I’ve also chucked on some new bigger tyres in the hope that this will aid the gearing a tad, and it certainly did seem to be a bit faster on the flat on the way home, so maybe it’ll do the trick.

Off on the long drive to Suffolk tomorrow night, race news when I get back. There might even be something of a Team Jelly reunion.