Author: Cris Bloomfield

Made plans to ride this weekend but never touched the trails. I think my body was telling me it was run down and my brain took the hint. Instead it was two days of shopping, tidying, fettling and doing odd jobs. Today I feel like I’ve ridden a 24hr race. My legs feel heavy and my thought is cloudy. The Merc CLK55 that came withing 6 inches of my bars on the way in barely raised an eyebrow and I couldn’t be bothered to berate the fool who edged out and jumped the lights on his hardtail with slicks whilst listening to Hed Kandi or some other tunes pumping into his brain via horrible fluoro green headphones. I was concentrating too hard on the ride. I think there’s an ear infection involved and I feel rubbish.

Sunday: Engaging ride in the Peak District on the Singlespeed
Monday: Commute in to work in the rain
Tuesday: Stonking blast home with a tail wind
Wednesday: Chilly weather is back for the second day in a row.
Thursday: Chain came off again accelerating away from the lights
Friday: Amazing tow in to work in the slipstream of a van

Clothing for the ride into work today was comprised of lightweight winter hat, merino base layer, fleece and a PacLite shell jacket with Endura 3/4 waterproof pants. I was just about warm. That’d be the end of summer then.

Went up to Llandegla today for the first time in ages. Managed to arrive before it became too busy, but still ended up in the overflow carpark because numpties with 4x4s need to occupy spaces that you could fit two cars into. These people need to learn how to park as it was pretty shocking the number of times it had happened.

The forest has been transformed by recent clear cut felling of vast areas and what used to be fast flowing woodsy sections are now open and exposed. It makes you apprecaite the layout of the valleys and hills around the site. I wonder how the trails will fair with some winter weather now they’re not quite so protected.

The new red section is fantastic. The singlespeed was in seatdown pedal like your feet are on fire attack mode and it was great getting some air and floating over the jumps. There are some new sections else where that have opened including some new short and cheeky black bits that are a bit of fun and there’s some much bigger sections that are due to open very soon. We’ll definitely be heading back. Finished up with a BBQ at the ‘trailhead’ visitors centre and managed to avoid the rain, in all a top day out!

With the commuter bike in the office since Friday, this morning was another run into work. My last run a few weeks ago was somewhat scuppered by the fact that I left the iPod touch in the office so the Nike+ had nothing to talk to. So this time I was more organised and had everything I needed at home. Still this run was ruined by the fact that the Nike+ transmitter wouldn’t talk to the iPod. In the end I ran in with music and discovered after some fettling over lunch that an iPod reboot seems to have made them start talking to each other again. Which is frustrating because if I’d know that was the cure this morning, I wouldn’t have had to hop around like a loon in the rain trying to fiddle with the Nike+ sensor from my shoe trying to work out how to power cycle it.

It’s been windy the last few days, but I’m not sure it’s windy enough to explain how tired my legs feel. Mmm. Hope it’s not me coming down with something. The smell of autumn is in the air. Summer never really seemed to happen beyond two nice weeks in June here in the UK. I’m just glad that I’ve been able to get over to Europe to see some sunshine and feel some heat. Swimming in the Med is great.

For the first time ever went up to Rivington. No bike this time, just hiking boots and great company. The route I think can be summed up as: Up past the hall to the Pigeon Tower, Belmont Road and then the foot path up to the ridge on Winter Hill, past all the masts and then down across the bog and up to the Pike and back to the car. It was nice, but windy – ended up with a hood up to stop the ear-ache. Would like to go again when it’s less busy with bikes.

Rivington Walk

Last month I picked up a Cotic Roadrat under the Bike to Work scheme where you make a salary sacrifice but then save a good percentage of the cost via a Tax break. It’s an interesting bike and exactly the kind of thing I wanted to replace the Harry Hall as an all year round workhorse. I’ve had a few niggles with it that I’m still trying to solve. The first is that the wheels just feel dull. I’m not sure if it’s the tyres or the actual spoke and rim combination, but they don’t feel as comfortable or sprightly as the S-Works tyres on the Bonty wheels I had previously.

The other niggles are firstly that the chain seems to be easily derailled off the chainring – annoyingly when starting off from a standstill (usually from traffic lights in rush hour). Despite using the chain tensioner to try and dial out the slack that is allowing this to happen, I’m still being irritated by this. Secondly, when you slam on the rear brake, the wheel gets pulled in the drop out to the non drive side. Which is annoying because you have to get off and undo the quick release to put it back in it’s place. I’m thinking that a new set of QRs or Allen key skewers are the way forward with that one.

Other than that it’s a great bike. The extra length certainly makes a difference when riding it so in all it’s a better riding position. Now it has some custom graphics on it and a few stickers, it’s certainly unique.

My sticker collection was running a little low and I decided I needed to get some suitable additions for the commuter…

I picked up a winter hat too (Owners’ Club t-shirt courtesy of the store).

Last night’s ride home was great. First of all I was keeping pace with a beautiful titanium coloured Aston Martin V8 Vantage past the Ferrari garage – they make such a beautiful sound. That V8 rumble put me in a great mood, then as I approached the next set of lights a double decker pulled out of the bus stop layby and I hooked up a great tow from the slipstream that sucked me along most of the way home. When he eventually stopped to let some people off, I had a great slingshot to clear all the other traffic lights. Ace!