Bike Blog
Chipps Chippendale the editor at Singletrack dropped me an email recently to say that my old Trans Cambrian feature made it to Throwback Thursday on their site. I hope you enjoy seeing it again.
Following the ride that Paul, Tyrrell and I undertook, Chipps did a feature on the same route a couple of years later. It’s a British classic.
This week’s Tuesday afternoon adventure was to the Jodphur Cafe in Reddish Vale. It’s always been a welcoming place for muddy mountain bikers and thankfully they don’t seem to mind small children either. Even if they do make a terrific mess eating muffins. Turns out that next door to the cafe is a farm where you can take under 3s for free which meant a nice bonus treat for the boys. Most climbing of any ride with the trailer so far, but survived okay. Not likely to get a ride in next Tuesday which was my last scheduled afternoon off.
Picked the boys up from Nursery again on Tuesday Lunchtime and headed straight out on another adventure. We took the Fallowfield loop line to the eastern most limit, which is the edge of Debdale Park. Turns out the bit of land that used to have a few dirt jumps on it is now part of the golf course and the old industrial site next to it is now being turned into a housing estate.
So having got quite close to the Audenshaw reservoirs and the M60 we doubled back and headed off in searhc of ice cream. Suitably equipped with icy treats we stopped by the reservoir to spot ducks before heading off home. Good jaunt and a few more miles logged on the Singlespeed towing the trailer.
The trailer is looking a bit battle scarred. This come from being squeezed, dragged and scraped through various trail barriers. The canopy is also looking a bit dogged. The who thing did a full barrel roll and back onto the wheels whilst unladed one day last week on the nursery run. Took a right hander corner and next thing I knew it had gone. Not sure if it caught an edge of a pot hole but it rolled nonetheless.
I’m going to try and get some kevlar fabric and sew it on.
Day off yesterday, so headed out on the road bike. I was immediately reminded that the pawls on the Mavic Helium freehub are bolloxed and I need to order some new ones from the hub doctor. Nonetheless in general motoring around it was fine. I am also having to come to terms with the fact that I cannot just big ring it everywhere and I will occasionally need to use the front mech.
The results of doing so were interesting – the acceleration once you put the hammer down on the Ti Crown Jewel is insane. I think the super stiff cranks and BB setup just equate to immediate power transfer and coupled with the right gearing the bike accelerates like stink. When you’re slightly lifting the front wheel when gunning it then you know something is going on. Those SRAM Red levers shift so sweetly down the block too.
The ride itself was rather intense. The conditions when I left seemed to be cool and overcast and within 15 minutes became sunny and then incredibly humid. This on the whole was okay as long as you kept moving, but once you stopped then it was a hot and sweaty affair. Worst was being stuck in insane amounts of traffic for a mid-week ride outside of rush hour and then getting stopped at every single set of red lights. I kid you not it was like I was a bloody red light magnet yesterday.
At the top of the climb out of Woodley into Hyde I felt like my brain was boiling. At least getting on the down hills provided some relief. Short on water I headed home sooner than planned, but I am at least getting some mojo back. A combination of more biking, a bit of running at a kettlebells class once a week is seeing an improvement in my general fitness and clearly I’ve lost some weight as shorts that wouldn’t fit before do now. Still someway to go to get back into a decent level of form, but those Peak District hills are calling.
As the in laws are on holiday for a month I’ve booked off Tuesday afternoons to look after the boys. So today at 1pm I scooped them up from nursery and bundled them into the trailer. It was adventure time.
Suitably armed with children’s snacks, spare nappy and baby wipes we were off. The downside to being lax on the riding front is that I have just discovered my Camelbak bladder has been stewing for the last god knows how long in the muddy Camelbak from my last ride. It is far from usable. I think it had water in it, but can’t be sure. It may now have aquatic life in it.
So my MULE was not sloshing with water but it did have other trail essentials and some water bottles. We were going off roading. Hooked up on the Fallowfield loop line, made a beeline to Chorlton and then took Hawthorn Lane down to the Mersey.
The bloody kissing gates and horse step boxes were a nightmare. I manages to get the bike and trailer through one kissing gate after 5 minutes contorting bikes and then gave up. It was quicker to decouple and do it that way. I also did haul it up and over through a few of the horse step boxes, but that was only a recipe for breakage.
From there the TPT took us to Chorlton Water Park where after ice creams we had a pleasant, but bumpy ride up to Northenden before turning North for the ride home. That ribbon of occasional smooth single track is ok on a bike, but he wide track of the trailer meant a less smooth journey for the boys. I don’t think we’ll try that again.
We were home via a trip to the park to play on the swings after 2 hours riding and 16 miles hauling. My knees ache and I’m knackered but it was good to get out. Now I have a week to plan the next route…
Nothing like a bit of sunshine to lift spirits. Even finding the singlespeed with a flat front wheel this morning didn’t dampen spirits. I just nipped up stairs and grabbed a spare tube and a pump and changed it outside with the boys before riding off to Nursery. To improve things further I had a ‘nicely done’ from some chap in the park negotiating the kissing gate with the trailer in one smooth move.
Yesterday I looked for some new wheels for the road bike (I really fancy some Ksyrium ES or SL Anniversary Editions), but I think I will just try and get the freehub repaired on the Heliums with some spares from the Hub Doctor. Might keep an eye out for a set of Ksyriums nonetheless.
So on the way back from the nursery yesterday I was a little enthusiastic with a right hander over a low curb coming into our private road and the next thing I knew the trailer was on it’s roof. Fortunately this was the return leg in the morning and so the boys weren’t upside down, but the entire contents of the stow net and pockets were well distributed inside the trailer canopy. This morning I tried again with a bit less pace and had it up onto one wheel again so it’s something to think about when out riding. I am sure that 20+ kilos of small children sitting inside would aid stability, but I don’t want to find out the hard way. So shhh, don’t tell the wife!
After a bit of faffing picked up a trailer from EBC. It wasn’t the first place I tried, I’d been hoping to get a second hand Giant or Trek trailer but failed and none of the other shops in the area I tried had any in and to be frank it was cracking value for money, already having been reduced and then being able to get a further discount on a brand new one. Transport for two for less than the prices of a pair of XTR clipless pedals.
Talking to Tom confirmed my fears that negotiating various trail obstacles was going to be the biggest issue and so it turned out. We managed to negotiate all but one of the barriers along the local disused railway line cyclepath on the way to see the horses at the paddock last Sunday. At that point we just turned around and came home – pretty much the whole route is offroad on paths or though the park, there’s probably about 50m of road all in.
Since then I’ve been taking the boys to nursery and picking them up every day in it – again on dedicated cycle paths, through the park or on designated cycleroutes in our suburban area. There’s just one kissing gate type barrier to get past which I’ve now discovered that If I back the bike in and pull the bike up on the rear wheel and pivot it 90 degrees to the right just lets me get though. I am definitely product testing the universal joint, although hopefully not the back up safety loop.
You notice it on the ups of course, but on the flat and downs there is hardly any difference. Saying that I’ve not tried anything too extreme so far, so I’ll reserve the right to change that point of view the first time the trailer tries to over take the bike on the downhills. Nice bit of kit so far. I hadn’t appreciated the need for the bars outside the wheels at first, but effectively they’ve already served the purposes of skidrails trying to fit through various gaps, saving the wheels from getting hammered and now carry a few battle scars.
My Friends Cheri Mills and Neil Mottershead came over on Saturday, they’ve been talking for months about their plans to set up a biking focused business. They’ve been off getting the necessary qualifications, my sister who’s a solicitor has drafted some legal terms and conditions and disclaimer paperwork and at then this weekend I setup the website and did some graphic design work to get things moving. The plan is for Cheri and Neil to offer coaching classes in a dedicated woodland they’ve negotiated access with the landowner to use ad this environment will allow them to bring peoples confidence and skills up.
They’re also offering guided riding in the Wrexham/Llangollen/Ruthin area of North Wales and further afield all over the UK. Finally both of them are professional mechanics and to hazard a guess I’d say they have over 50 years in the trade experience. They’re running bike maintenance classes to give people both trailside knowledge and skills and develop home mechanic abilities. Check things out on Facebook or via their site nwmbcg.co.uk
Hauled Marc out on the Rockhopper equipped with childhauler bike seat (Co Pilot Limo). He was asleep before half way so then I had to spend the rest of the ride making sure his hat hadn’t fallen off or that his feet were in the right place and shoes hadn’t fallen off. It was a cracking afternoon and I did manage some decent big-ring power riding even if there were plenty of stops to look at things and watch the world go by.
So the next dilemma is trailers. I think it makes a lot of sense to get one so that we can take both Marc and Nick out, but I am not too sure on the current market offerings and whether it will be of any practical use. The route we rode today was littered with the type of barriers designed to stop cars and motorbikes getting onto the trail. so I am not sure how you’re supposed to get a trailer through them… Time to do some investigation!
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