Bearing Mart

I need to get some bearings for the set of Bontrager Race X Lite wheels that have been on the road bike over the summer. They were in good shape when I bought second hand off a friend, but the notched sensation from turning the axles highlighted that they needed new bearings. I’ve ridden them for another 12 months before taking them apart and getting the necessary spline tool to disassemble the simple, but effective integral DT Swiss freewheel ratchet mechanism. So tonight I headed up to see if Bearing Mart which was behind the now leveled Tom Garner garage site was still there and it is, so I’ll pop over for some new bearings tomorrow lunchtime.

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Wet and Miserable

Bit of a grim ride tonight. Not really that keen on going out but I headed up to the Velodrome at Eastlands to see if there are any taster sessions available. Some coming up next week so I’ll make a booking tomorrow. Tried the out the new Endura Venturi 3/4s which arrived today. They’re fantastic. Great cut (fitting my thighs and calf muscles nicely), warm but not too warm, completely waterproof and subtle looks without that waterproof rustling noise when walking around. Good for riding in and really couldn’t have asked for anything better. Was hoping to get further but it took 30 minutes just to get to Stuart St as I seemed to hit every single bloody set of lights just as they turned to red. Ride home was a bit better, although wouldn’t have been complete without the compulsory idiot opening a car door without riding in Rusholme. Another urban ride tomorrow night. Ended up having to add in some extra loops to make up the hour.

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Over the Bridge

I was determined today to make the big push through to Marple and extend the route that I’d worked on a few weeks ago by crossing over the Goyt and pushing the exploration a bit further. It worked a treat and actually there was only a mile or so of trail before it linked into some trails that I’d ridden with Neil Mottershead last year when he lived in the area.

Once in Marple, I admit that I didn’t make the final push through to the Roman Lakes on this ride. I really didn’t have time, but I did do quite a big section of the Middlewood Way, which opens up the option of extending this route all the way to Macclesfield which would make for a near 50 mile round trip as a future option.

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River Run Variation

Today’s ride was a variation on the River Run and found some new trails. This included riding to the end of the Fallowfield Loop Line trail into Chorlton and then riding Hawthorn Lane down to the Mersey. A few other interesting bits, including a foot deep pond of water on the trail at the bottom of Cow Lane on the approach to the return crossing of the M60.

Should be riding in completely the other direction tomorrow to keep things interesting. Felt pretty good and it was nice to be out. Quite why there were a load of people doing urban cross country skiing on glorified roller blades this morning is beyond me, but they were an odd looking bunch to see in South Manchester and took up a lot of room.

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Getting Set

Winter arrived (briefly) following the weekend with some properly cold weather and more snow, but rain this morning saw a return to mild damp conditions. I seem to have destroyed another pair of shorts. Some of my Oakley Ballistic 2.4 shorts which are now a good four years old have worn through. In fairness they’ve already been sown back together after coming apart at the seams during the Cham to Zermatt and that fix held up okay. At some point last year I cut the short liners out because they’d worn out so I just wore lycra shorts underneath. This time however the actual panels have worn through and I’m very tempted to try and get some Ventile cloth to make up some patterns and have them rebuilt. I still haven’t found any better shorts and most recent versions have all been a bit crap in comparison.

I’m also getting psyched up for this weekend which should mark the start of an ambitious plan. Riding for at least an hour non-stop everyday for 30 days. I’ll have to fit it in by various means and it’ll include some days of travel and racing too. Sustaining it shouldn’t be too difficult, but we’ll see. I’ll be turning the Harry Hall into a singlespeed commuting hack shortly to free up some parts for a cross bike build so that might make things a little bit interesting if a new frame turns up next month…

Calderdale Rocks!

Riding in Calderdale today. It’s been far too long since I managed to get up to the valley, but it’s great to ride familiar trails with friends once again. A few more photos here.

The Moon and Pike

The bogtrotters were riding in the area too. They ended their ride just as we were loading up the cars to come home. I did resist a golden opportunity to run over an infamous photographer in the carpark outside Singletrack towers as I left. It was a close call 🙂

Going Offshore

It was August 2003 the last time I visited Guernsey, but early next month I’m returning to the island to catch up with old friends and ride a classic. The Herm mountain bike race is quite unlike anything else I know of. Herm, an island with a population of about 60 people and a surface area of just 2 square kilometres, is an unlikely venue for a race on paper, but the granite geology which forms the hilly backbone to the island and forces a steep climb up from the east and west coasts at least forces a quick division in the field between those with climbing legs and everyone else. It’s going to be ace!

Map of Herm

Torn it

After almost two season’s duty as the winter riding shorts, the Altura two-thirds shorts are no more. After riding with Neil Mottershead prior to the Cape Epic last year I went out and found some Altura Night Vision over trousers. Reasonably cheap waterproof trousers, which had some convenient reflective piping just below knee length which meant they lent themselves to having the bottoms cut off quite well.

Two-Thirds Shorts

A cheap alternative to more expensive Goretex alternatives and fantastic with Roubaix Bibknicks underneath. They’ve been commuting essentials this season as well as being fantastic for offroad riding and keeping the grime at bay. Anyway the arse ripped out of them on the ride home on Monday so that’s the end of them. Not sure if I’ll try and get some replacements or upgrade to some Sombrio alternatives.

Parallels

There’s been an icon on the desktop of my MacBook Pro for about as long as I have had it for Parallels. To be honest I started the installation process, reached so far and discovered I had to register even for the demo and never followed through, which hasn’t really been a problem because I have access to a Windows Terminal Server when I need it and OSX can do most of what I want. Which is all fine until you need to do some testing on Internet Explorer that isn’t a restricted access version and need to be able to see pretty much what most end users will see. So this morning I’ve upgraded to a full version of Parallels and after following the steps in the simple setup guide, I have something that is working. It’s actually a lot better than I thought it would be and I can now play around with Vista too.