Author: Cris Bloomfield

Worked in the bike shop yesterday. I am very tempted by a new bike as I’ve been looking to replace the FSR for some time now. I did want an Intense 5.5 EVP but Tim can’t get me one and now I’m not sure what to get instead. Do I go burly or lightweight Cross Country? If I had the patience then there’s the Independent Fabrication Tungsten Electrode, which is going to be a 4″ travel bike for life with it’s mega money frameset, but then suspension designs are improved over time so do you really want a full suspension bike for life?

I looked at Scott Genius MCs while I was in Switzerland and they look the business for riding out there, but I’m not sure how they’d hold up to northern rockiness. Then there’s the new Blur LT that’ll be out soon but no one knows when and finally there’s the new Specialized Enduros, which I’ve reconsidered after fettling with one yesterday. Still undecided really, but I really fancy something new for summer.

Rapha make fairly bling bike gear – with a touch of pink. Wool is the big thing this year. Even Nike have brought out some retro styled gear including their hideously expensive but very nice looking Tete de Course jersey. I’m sitting here in one of last years Howies Yurt Merino Wool mid layers – It’s the busniess. There’s also some nice bike kit on offer from the cyclejersey.com. Check ’em out. My order is already in.

If you’ve been without a bike for a while getting one again gives you a great feeling and a lot of independence. Big thanks to Jed for his help in hooking my sister up with a new ride. She’s stoked to be riding such a great bike – a rather unique Columbus tubed Sunn Exact Un.

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And to finish – pictures from Switzerland are finally up here.

For some reason all of my last three posts have been on Wednesdays. This may mean that Wednesday is the day of the blog, or it may mean that it’s just about the only day in the week that I get a hance to sit down and do some updating…

So since I’ve been away Big Dunc has decided that he has had enough of being a bike shop mechanic has handed in his notice and as they say in Manchester, has ‘done one’. It seems that he’s tarted his motorbike up too. Can you picture it?

On a motorbike theme, some bright sparks decided that the current habit of doing some fairly crazy stuff on big bikes could be taken to the next level by getting the bad boys airborne. Thing with any kind of jumping is that taking off and flying is easy. Landing is the difficult bit. I guess this probably stung a bit… This probably hurt more.

See the thing with motorbikes is that they’re inherently dangerous for the rider. Stack it and like mountai bikes you and the bike tend to part company fairly quickly ina self preservation instinctive reaction. Thing with cars and trucks is that you’ve got a great big metal box to surround you. Which is okay as long as you know how big the vehicle is and can keep control of it. Loose it and it all gets a bit nastly for anyone not protected by the cars interior. Anyway enough drivel…

Keepin’ it real in te world of bikes, Cipollini may not have such an easy road to retirement after all. Seems like he may be tied by an old contractual agreement that he will need to buy his way out of, not that it looks like this will stop him from his plans. More sprinter news here. Meanwhile Botero looks like he is going to have a cracking season.

The Euro and UK singlespeed championships are now being finalised. Looks like there is a fair bit of variety and choice open to people this year, especially with the Worlds in Pennsylvania coming up. Maybe there’ll be some Blackbox kit seen at some of the races this year…

In the US if you’ve ever tried to enjoy a National Park by mountain bike, chances are you’ve been disappointed. With some notable exceptions, America’s premier park system is closed to off-road riding, but that’s going to change with a new five-year agreement just signed by the IMBA and the National Park Service.

For the first time, National Park Service leaders in Washington, D.C., have formally recognized mountain biking as a positive activity, compatible with the values of our National Park system. The agreement offers potential opportunity for new access to hundreds of dirt roads in National Park units that have been closed to bicycling. While National Park Service rules require a lengthy process to open singletrack to bicycle use, appropriate dirt roads may be opened with a more straightforward administrative process.

“This agreement represents a true breakthrough for mountain biking,” said IMBA Executive Director Mike Van Abel. “It opens the door for individual park units to partner with mountain bikers and investigate new riding opportunities on a case-by-case basis” – More here.

I’m back from the Alps. There was plenty of snow (including several feet of powder and tracking fresh lines off piste on the Stockhorn glacier was the highlight of the ‘boarding) and there was also lots of road tripping: Saas Fee, Chamonix, Verbier, Vevey… as well as Zermatt. An interesting mix of destinations fer shure. There’s some photo’s coming soon.

So what’s new? Well keepin’ it real in BC, Ticket2Ride (T2R) is a Canadian mountain bike tour firm keen to show you the best of what is on offer. Following on from Mark Alker’s exploits in the canadian territories in the most recent issue of Singletrack, Canada is an increasingly popular destination with mountain bikers, looking to explore outside of Europe. T2R is the brainchild of Scott Lanzi and since 2003 has been promoting the riding, lifestyle and culture of the mountain biking community in Whistler. From 5 day tours to bespoke guided custom trips they’re looking to put a constant smile on peoples faces and inspire new levels of riding ability. Check it out.

Is it for real? Is Cipo really going to call it a day? I can’t see it being the same without the big man, but he has faded a bit from his glory days over the last few years. I think Lance may be doing the right think with his plans to step down from racing after this year’s Tour de France.

This is a reminder that viruses are really very bad and not good for your computer.

I’m off out to Switzerland on Sunday. There’s still some snow out there apparently so Snowboarding should definitely be an option. It’s been over two years since I went boarding in Andorra and I’m looking forward to getting back out on the slopes and getting some late season sunshine.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to read some other sites and see what’s been happening on t’internet. I notice that Dave has had a bit of a rethink about his site over here, all that lovely photography isn’t there at the moment, but I’m sure some of it will be back soon.

This is a new site, bearbackbiking, that I found on Singletrackworld not so long ago. It comes highly recommended by Jed because the person behind it also has a passion for trying to fit mountain bikes into cars that really were not ever designed with transporting anything other than a driver and possibly a passenger in mind.

Going down under, it seems that 26inches are still going strong. They have some summaries of the latest news as reported else where, but have done a tidy job of putting it all together in a fairly neat and tidy package. They seem to be tied in fairly tightly with those purveyors of fine bike apparel, Lab-Gear.

Moving back into the Northern hemisphere and not too far from here, the site redesign and improvement concept has led to Rob Lewis and all over at BETD to launch a new site some time since I last visited. It’s a fine looking setup and all the old stuff still seems to be on there, plus lots of new bits and pieces.

There’s more on the new RockShox over at the Bike magazine website and those crazy fixed geared offroaders have made a seasonal adjustment to the 63XC site. I don’t know if it was tied into the equinox or anythin, but it’s all good. A bit like Corty now being in Canada. I’m now the only one of the three Chris’ still in the UK. And if I include our recent export to Norway (how’s it going out there?) I’m feeling even more left out.

Now the road bike project is still in a fairly infantile stage. I’ve sorted a saddle out now, so I’m only a complete groupset and a pair of wheels away from a bike. Then I’ll find out if the frame fits. In the mean time Lance is wondering yet again how long he can be bothered to race the big events, when he seems to get such a buzz at just rocking up at small town events and mixing it up with the locals. I suppose that it’s unlikely he’ll be seen on a Cannondale anytime soon.

Over and out.

I’ve finally transferred all the old content over to this new site format and added in a lot of stuff that wasn’t on here before. I’m pretty please with the results – there’s been a lot of work involved.

Despite the removal of what was considered the most dangerous section of cobbles on the Paris-Roubaix parcours – the dreaded Forêt d’Arenberg – the lead rider for French team Cofidis, Stuart O’Grady, believes Sunday’s epic race could actually be harder without the famously-brutal section.

“Before you could feel the race would chill out a bit (after Arenberg), as the race would then enter good sections of asphalt, they would take in some food and drinks and then prepare for the next section. But now, they’ve replaced it with absolute goat-tracks, it’s constantly twisting left and right; there just no place to recover,” he said. “It’s just going to be full-on.” (Cyclingnews)

Boonen won the Paris-Roubaix, just beating Hincapie, which is a good result. There’s been some interesting kit setup for this event including soft-tail OCLV Treks and dodgy drilled stems.

Finally I don’t follow football too closely, but I did find this result very amusing. Good effort from the Norfolk boys.

The muddy gritstone of the north has claimed another set of brake pads, the only issue is this only became apparent as I was assembling the bike out of the car at the beginning of last nights ride. It doesn’t inspire much confidence to know the only thing slowing you down is metal on metal where there should be disc composite. Front wheel braking was used more than normal which was interesting given the riding was on the wet and slippery side where you don’t really want the front wheel getting squirrelly on the descents.

Glass. Metal. Ceramic. Stone. Look how it get’s this penny: Good as new! This Cillit Bang remix made it onto Radio 1 this morning – for someone that’s fairly good publicity. I hadn’t heard the E-Sure remix either – calm down dear – it’s surely a winner. The otherone still doing the rounds albeit now in dubbed version is the annoying sound…

I’ve been looking for some ways to do things on the web recently and came across the SlayerOffice site. There’s some really neat solutions on there and I’m thinking of what I can build in and where.

Finally this is a bit cheeky and this is bad news for the Macclesfield Forest Downhill Course. And this is a bit Intense.

Friday night was the long awaited cheeky velodrome session. A load of mountain bikers, many with singlespeed riding experience, some with fixed riding experience and a few that had ridden the track before. It was good three hour session with a bit of racing, a bit of falling off and probably too much baggy clothing and too many peaked helmets to be aerodynamically efficient, but that wasn’t really the main objective…

More photos here and here

April Fools was disappointing really. I think I read something about the EU banning right hand drive cars in Europe in the near future, but I though this novelty fondue set was probably more likely to catch people out.

Recent research has revealed just how important your ranking in google and other top search engine is to actually getting people visiting your site. The higher the rank and therefore the higher up the page you are, recent research has now demonstrated, really does affect the likelihood that your site will be favoured over those results lower down the page.

Check out these vintage wool jerseys. Some classics that are now being reproduced in high quality merino, the Alfa Romeo top look great. Finally there’s some great work on the preloaded site – check out the heart attack link for a clever redesign of an arcade classic and shooting stars.

I’ve added quite a lot more from the old site back into the new version. There’s more to come over the next few weeks.

Today’s is going to be a none bike related post. I’ve been having a lot of problems with the site guestbook since I relaunched the site. It’s the fourth piece of guetbook software I’ve tried over the years and I’m currently using Matt Wright’s simple guestbook. The problem is that this seems to be a known favourite with spammers, which has meant that over the last few weeks a number of spammers or spam robots have made entries.

Now these have tended to be adverts for drugs and given this is a cycling website, that might not be so out of place, but as it’s now reached irritating proportions a fix was needed. This has come in the shape of Junkeater, a tidy little PHP utility that filters entries for spam origins and also includes a nice little javascript confirmation utility. First impressions are that it seems to do work, so I’ll have to see if it solves the problem over the next few days.

Photos from yesterdays Langsett ride are now up here. The weather wasn’t great and so the pictures are tinged with that grey overcast tone, that I think is the reason that British weather has received unfavourable stereotypes with foreign visitors. It was warm for the time of year and the moisture just ended up being trapped as low cloud.

Rock Shox have launched their new forks in the wake of Manitou‘s not particularly inspiring new line up previewed last week. It looks like Rock Shox is going to claw back some sales with the new additions, but this will be no simple task with recent market share increases for Fox and Marzocchi. I think they have a good chance of regaining ground in the XC and Freeride (as opposed to all mountain) markets, to the detriment of Marzocchi and Manitou, manufacturers who seem to have become associated with other aspects of the market in the last two years.

This is the current Trek Fuel OCLV Carbon XC race bike, probably one of the most materially advanced full suspension bikes on the market.

The choice today was either to head over to North Wales and ride some man made trails or to stay local and try and tackle a new route in the Peaks. The peaks option won through and I ended up heading up to Langsett and doing a big ride around the reservoirs in that area. I took the singlespeed out again and it’s the first time I’ve chosen it for a big ride in the Peaks.

I’m still running 34:16 from Thetford, which if you get enough weight behind, is okay for most of the riding on offer. There were a couple of highlights like riding the Snow track that runs to the Summit of the Woodhead Pass and a few other well constructed tracks. The rest of the ride was a mudbath, traversing poorly drained moorland and bog.

The winter boots proved their worth once again, but there were a couple of times the front wheel sank up to it’s axle and pitched me into the mud over the bars. In all there was enough good riding to make it a worthwhile route, but I don’t think I’ll be going back there until we get summer drought conditions for a month. Most of the trails just seem to double up as wet weather streams. Photos will be added soon.