R O T H A R . C O M

Engleberg was great to revisit, but for me the real riding started in France. Graeme ‘MacPuppy’ Blance of Singletrack Cape Wrath Epic riding fame was entertaining us at the Alaskan Pup’s new Eurokennel. I don’t think the drive up the gorge from Grenoble was surpassed on the entire trip. I certainly doubt that we had any other driving section that produced the innards shifting lateral g-forces that those hairpin corners coupled with a bit of vorsprung durch technik quattro delivered. It was a great bit of road and is an enviable commute, either up or down.

The mountain plateau into which the village of Lans snuggles is surrounded by terrain that forms a winter playground and stunning summer mountain biking. If any one is thinking of riding in France I’d recommend here. A great part of the world with fantastic trails, mountain air and stunning scenery. The only problem was we couldn’t stay longer and explore more local riding.

The night was marked with a spectacular thunder and lighting storm above the village. The ride the next day took us up a slippery rock and root infested climb, along the route of which we encountered a tree that had been struck by lightning. Substantial shards of wooden shrapnel surrounded the remains of the tree for a radius of about 25m and it’s destruction was an impressive sight and reminder of the frailty of life and the power of nature. It was almost as impressive as the breathtaking views from the ridge. These looked back over the plateau and further down and across Grenoble. Lans really is heaven. Here’s the evidence.

From: Mike
Subject: Tee Hee

Out on her royal yacht the Queen was enjoying the sea air when she spied a man in the water off the port bow – clearly being menaced by a very large shark.

Through her binoculars she could see it was Christian Ronaldo, struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a 20 foot shark! The queen ordered the captain to change course to try and save the poor man, but she knew the yacht’s top speed would never get them there in time.

At that exact moment a speedboat containing three men wearing white England shirts sped into view. One of the men took aim at the shark and fired a harpoon into its ribs,immobilising it instantly. The other two reached out and pulled Ronaldo from the water and, using long clubs, beat the shark to death. They bundled the bleeding, semi-conscious Ronaldo into the speedboat along with the dead shark and prepared for a hasty retreat, when they heard frantic calling …….

It was the Queen calling them to the yacht.

On reaching yacht the Queen went into raptures about the rescue and said to Beckham, Rooney and Gerrard (for it was they) “I will give you a knighthood for your brave actions. I thought the England team would hate Ronaldo after the world cup, but I see that my England team are true heroes and should serve as a model for sportsmanship to other countries.” She knighted them there and then, and proceeded to sail away.

As she departed Rooney asked the others, “Who was that?!”

“That,” Beckham answered, “was our Queen. She rules the commonwealth and knows everything about our country.”

“Well,” Rooney replied, “she definitely knows F***all about shark fishing. How’s the bait holding up ?”

Back in the UK with a lot of stats under tyre rubber. 2,500 miles driving across England, France and Italy. Over 11,500m climbing and 19,000m descent on the bike and a successful completion of the Haute Route by bike with extra days riding in Engleberg in central Switzerland and Lans in the French Vercors thrown in too. I don’t really think cruising around the dusty and sandy shores of Lake Como really counts as riding, but Jed and I found time for that too.

The Engleberg shots are up here. It was a bit strange to go back to a place where I had ridden before and discover that the trails had been completely destroyed. The river that runs down the mountain from the resort runs through a very narrow glacial valley and clearly over the last few years has been carrying so much water and load that it has reshaped the immediate riparian area, resulting in a situation where the trail that used to run parallel to the river has been destroyed in places and replaced by a massive boulder and debris field. In other spots it was precariously narrow or undercut. There was a bit of scrambling up and down the valley because we weren’t going to ride the road…

The driving was surprisingly good. We were treated to spectacular lightning storms and torrential rain in the early hours as we blazed a trail across France, but by the time we reached Luzern the temperature was in the mid thirties and there wasn’t a hint of rain. That night there was another terrific storm, but again the rain only started the following day after we had finished a ride up in the mountains above Engleberg and were back at the car down the valley.

Driving also led to an interesting conversation with my insurance company. I really don’t understand why they will cover a named driver on my policy to drive in Europe’s EU countries but not in Switzerland. Governments and Millionaires across the world entrust the Swiss with their money through exclusive bank accounts, but a Uk company can’t apply general common sense when it comes to cover. That just seems wrong. Any way more reports from the trip soon….

From: Kate
Subject: Why we forward Jokes

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.

He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the
sunlight.

When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.

When he was close enough, he called out, “Excuse me, where are we?”

“This is Heaven, sir,” the man answered.

“Wow! Would you happen to have some water?” the man asked.

“Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.”

The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

“Can my friend,” gesturing toward his dog, “come in, too?” the traveler asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.”

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence

As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

“Excuse me!” he called to the man. “Do you have any water?”

“Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there, come on in.”

“How about my friend here?” the traveler gestured to the dog.

“There should be a bowl by the pump.”

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.

“What do you call this place?” the traveler asked.

“This is Heaven,” he answered.

“Well, that’s confusing,” the traveler said. “The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.”

“Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s hell.”

“Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?”

“No, we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.”

Tomorrow I’m off and heading south towards Europe and the Alps. It’s going to be ace. No updates for a couple of weeks and pretty much as soon as I land back in the UK it’ll be time to start getting ready for 24/12. Photos from Eastnor are now up here the ones with a distictive Indy Fab theme are lurking over at ifrider.com

Over at Singletrack’s IMBA forum discussion about the merits of Northshore are still going on. I’ve been following it and finding it quite interesting. I think these comments from Mr Fish are really some of the best I have heard yet:

still, rules, regulations, plans, ideas etc etc are all open to different interpretations and if i don’t like the sound of something i will say so, like for instance building lots of easy low level NS stuff without some sort of progression to MUCH bigger stuff is just wasting time and energy and making it not that envoirmently sound as peeps will get bored and go off where you can’t see them and build there own big stuff (shonky shore) on your fc land with no control, still have an accident and still sue you for it whilst still not hitting your target audience of teen scum/fat kids because its low and… well sod it …gay

Amen to that. Check out the fall out here. On a final note the Digital Camera Magazine competition is open to everyone and why not…

I rocked up at Mountain Mayhem about 9pm said hello to the Jim Morrison and his friends, setup the tent (having cocked it up the first time I eventually remembered that the long poles support the inner), cracked open some beers and set off in search of food. The catering tent didn’t appear on the radar until the next day, the night before was spent watching Roam in the big Singletrack tent and then getting leathered in the Heckler’s Corner with the cheeky clique.

Saturday was largely spend rehydrating and trying to recover from a monstrous headache. Breakfast didn’t really happen. I managed to queue, get food and make it to a table where I contemplated my collection of hash browns, sausages and beans and tea, before deciding it was all too much and I had to go for a lie down behind the food tent. Eventually I summoned up the strength to crawl back to the table recover my food and return to a foetal position under the shade of a tree to bemoan my excessive alcohol consumption and pick at my fry up and curse the loss of the tea that was sent flying as I staggered back.

At some point Nige Harris and Jam Price arrived and delivered lots of west midlands humour, team moral, support and a good opportunity to talk about porn. Inevitably we talked about Indy Fabs a lot and then before you knew it 2pm had snuck up and it was race time. Jam did the run and carried one for two laps. I ended up last man out around 5pm. The first two laps were fliers. The next two laps started well, but I went too hard on the first and my forth lap was marked by the dreaded stomach cramps leading to a need for a lie down at the top of the course to stretch and relax. Hence an extra 15 minutes to the lap and a recognition that I was a lot better off only going out for one at a time from then on.

The dawn lap was ace. The baking heat that had been radiating up off the grass was gone, it was warm but not sticky and close and there was a cool breeze. It was a cracking lap. Lap six I later realised had been completed without the transponder on and the final lap was undertaken only about five minutes before the 2pm race end. We ended up 44th in the Race Results, but given my cock up with the transponder would have been 35th in the mixed men otherwise. Hell if I hadn’t done such a shocking lap in the night we could probably have made it 36 laps and climbed into the low 20s. Anyway it was still the best 24hr I’ve done in a long time and I’m really glad to have raced.

Unfortunately as a result the Magura riders have gone down in my estimation too. There was a big difference between the professional riders on the Scott and Giant teams who were patient and courteous (and went on to finish 1st and 2nd) and at least one of the riders racing for Magura. The bridges in the singletrack at the top of the course after the long climb really were not wide enough for over taking. Still a certain Magura rider saw a gap that didn’t really exist and went for it.

According to this thread on Singletrackworld I wasn’t alone in my experience of being buzzed. Whilst I am not going to be put off buying Magura kit (it’s ace stuff after all and in fact since the race I’ve ordered some of these bad boys), I would agree with this comment from Clubber:

“Being sponsored, I’d suggest that not pissing people off is even more important. Maybe it’s going too far not to buy Magura kit but it’s the only way I’ve got of making my point (I did consider finding someone from the Magura team but TBH I was too knackered to want to do anything other than head back to our camp). Team managers should be falling overthemselves instilling the importance to their sponsored riders of making a good impression. Either that’s not happening or the riders are ignoring it.

And for the record, I’m not someone who doesn’t understand what it means to be a serious racer but the fact is that if you do SSMM, you’ve got to accept that you’re going to be held up at some point. Acting in an arrogant way isn’t excusable under the guise of ‘racing’. As usual, the really top riders (Giant and Scott) seemed able to overtake without pissing off anyone I’ve heard of.”

I’m a big guy and I can take being buzzed by someone who was a faster rider on the day. My problem isn’t with being overtaken, it was the execution of the manoeuvre and the timing. I’m also concerned that another less experienced rider could have had a really nasty off and ended up getting taken down badly and getting injured. Despite the drama, the course was in my humble opinion on of the best 24hr courses in recent years.

Yes it might have benefited from being a bit longer. Especially at night you could see the riders bunched up quite a lot, but that was mostly on the climbs and on the flat sections people did become a lot more spread out. However the shorter course did allow riders to double lap if they wanted to do a longer ride or just go out for one as they became more tired. Out team tried both and it worked for us really well.

I think the important thing to remember is that the course was being ridden by many riders for whom this might have been their first ever race or at least their first ever 24hr. As such the course did I think meet the need to cater for every one. If you were fast the challenge was to peg it through the Singletrack and not clip a tree with your bars or shoulder or to ride the Kenda climb in the middle ring. From my point of view as a singlespeeder, the fact the whole course was ridable mostly seated was a big advantage.

In summary then a cracking course, a lot of which could be seen from the campsite which added to the excellent atmosphere and creative heckling. Big respect to the course designers and a big thanks to Pat for putting on another year of great racing for us all. To finish off this post,  Andy Armstrong started this SSMM06 Group at Flickr, there’s an interesting Caption Comp here and quite how this guy managed to get his leg stuck in a frame is quite mind boggling. Good effort there chief. Singletrack race photos are here and finally here are Joolz Dymond’s pictures.

The sun beat down, the rain kept away, the course designers had excelled themselves. It was a great weekend and I had a fantastic time. More photos and a proper race report soon.

The rothar.com race team will be heading off to Eastnor Castle and the Malverns for Mountain Mayhem tomorrow. I did the big shop yesterday and am pretty much ready to go as soon as I get home from work tomorrow. Singlespeed, mud tyres and a range of gears and I’m hoping that the weekend and my racing is going be be okay. The forecast isn’t much to go on. I guess everyone will soon find out what the conditions are going to be like for the race.

On Tuesday morning as I battled against tiredness to drag myself out of bed, the thought that Harry Halls had been completely refitted and changed into an ultra modern palace of bike bits, rather than an Aladdin’s cave, entered my mind. To be sure I wasn’t just imagining things, I dropped in on my way home last night and picked up some bits for Mountain Mayhem this weekend.

Mel was in with her partner and they were sorting out bikes for the Manchester to Blackpool ride. Mel worked at Harry’s the year I started there and then went on to a proper job teaching kids. She is without doubt one of the nicest people I have ever met. It was great to catch up with her (I think it’s the first time I’ve seen her for about five years) and the guys from the shop and find out what everyone has been up to. I miss working there quite a lot.

These look like a great set of wheels. If I rode the road bike more I’d try and justify getting some. In comparison to Manchester right now Mt Snow looks like a great place to be. It actually looks like they have a summer. Recycling stuff is good. Stealing so you can recycle isn’t. In fact it can get you into a lot of trouble. Oh and Harry’s was just the same as I remembered it.

Yesterday was hot. Not as hot as last year, but still far too hot to be in a winter weight dinner suit and wearing a formal university gown and hood and stuck in a room that could be acurately described as a giant greenhouse. Commitments meant that Saturday was a good opportunity to get some practice in making speeches and drinking. Scotch, Sherry, White Wine, Red Wine, Port, Madeira, Lager, Real Ale, More Wine. Actually I’m quite glad I’m not riding. I’m not feeling too great for some reason today…

I’ve been to Nottingham many times. To be honest, given the last time I was there some one was shot just around the corner from where I was staying in the Meadows, I can believe this:

From: Mike
Subject: You gotta love this one

The Nottingham Forest manager flies to Baghdad to watch a young Iraqi play football and is so impressed he arranges for him to visit England. Two weeks later Forest are 4-0 down to Chelsea in a cup match with only 20 minutes left. The manager gives the young Iraqi striker the nod and on he goes.

The lad is a sensation, scores 5 in 20 minutes and wins the game for Forest.

The fans are delighted, the players and coaches are delighted and the media love the new star.

When the player comes off the pitch he phones his mum to tell her about his first day in English football. “Mum! guess what!” he says. “I played for 20 minutes today, we were 4-0 down but I scored 5 and we won! Everybody loves me, the fans, the media: they all love me!”

“Wonderful”, says his mum, “Now let me tell you about my day. While you were having a great time, your father got shot in the street, your sister and I were robbed and beaten and your brother has joined an armed street gang.”

The young lad is distraught: “What can I say mum, I’m just so sorry.”

“And so you should be,” says his mum “It’s your fault we moved to Nottingham in the first place.”

Chilly knows the person implicated in this. Everyone else is about to know him when team “rothar giant-pygmy south african deadpineapple division” unleash their secret weapon at 24/12. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

From: GB
Subject: Duck and Cover

On Sat we went for a cycle, the usual, along the canal to the Swan with Two Necks and then through Dunham Massey Park and home. But this time……..

We decided to put KB on the back of TB’s bike (I think that was the first and last time!!!) and off we set, the path along the canal was quite busy with walkers and cyclists as it was a nice day. Anyway, TB was in the front and we are coming up behind an old lady and her little maltese poodle. We have slowed down, but TB has not taken his feet out of his cleets. The lady turns around and starts telling tye off because he should have a bell and she couldn’t hear him. TB goes off the path to slowly go around her (remember KB is on the back of TB’s bike!) The lady starts to move out the way, so TB starts to pedal back onto the path but then the lady steps onto the path again to get her dog!!! TB starts to fall, ever so slowly, cant get his feet out the pedal and what does he do?

Sticks his hand out for balance and pushes the old lady into the canal! And her dog was on the lead so the poor thing was dragged in too! SPLOSH! Both of them right under the water. Goodness me, it was terrible! Now KB is on the side on the floor, she was fine I just lifted the bike up and she was fine. But the old lady was saying My Back, My Legs, I’ve just got out of hospital, help, help, I can’t swim!

TB was trying to lift her out but it was quite difficult, luckily someone came to help. Anyway, the lady was fine, we gave her a warm top to put on and her hubby came to fetch her. The worry would be if she swallowed any of the water! The canal is not clean! All she could say to us was, why don’t we have a bell. And boy, are we going to get one! It was soooo terrible!

But afterwards, we couldn’t stop laughing, it must have been the shock. I could not stop giggling! So, needless to say, we will be staying away from that little cycle route for a while!

Ace. I’m sure they can sense him approaching.

I’ve been interested to see what people have been saying about kitting bikes out for the Alps. I’ve ridden out there and done some epic and rocky descents on nothing more than v-brakes and front suspension. In fact not so long ago some one went to a french hypermarche, bought the equivalent of a £99 bargain and then rode the Les Gets downhill course. So why is it that you now need a 6″ full suspension bike with 200mm discs with phenolic pistons and floating calipers? I reckon it’s all a marketing ploy to make people buy more bikes and bits. There’s a great thread on Singletrackworld about it. Jed and I are quite taken by Colin Burgess’s comment:

I should think you’ll die horribly, screaming down the hill with your brakes spontaneously combusting, and your wheels resplendent as firey discs from hell, to a chorus from onlookers chanting ‘you should have bought avid juicys, they cure cancer’.

I am also a big fan of Alex Leigh over at Pickled Hedgehog. I have a lot of time for his accounts of real life. i can particularly concur with his views on riding while under the influence. I had always thought that riding off road when drunk was bad (particularly at night, during beach parties and along cliff top paths), but come to think of it Al has a point. Urban riding has that added danger of traffic…

Riding whilst drink has much to commend it. Firstly it renders you immortal by sheathing your squashy bits in what I like to think of as “lager armour”. Secondly it engenders a certain raffish approach to risk. Rather than assess the many and potentially fatal hazards awaiting the unwary cyclist, one can throw the entire risk management system out of the window; although a more apt description would be “in front of an oncoming car”

Thirdly, it grants you god like riding skills. Well that’s not entirely true of course, you think you have magically attained god like riding skills otherwise why would you attempt to craft a cheeky manoeuvre of placing a 24inch handlebar in a 20inch gap? As I wobbled down the Strand, it became increasingly clear that while I had no issues whatsoever powering the bike, steering it was quite another matter. Still what with being immortal, immune to risk and infused with divine bike skills, my progress was serene if a little erratic. It put me in mind of that old joke “I’ve never been in an accident but I’ve seen quite a few”.

IF have just bought out a rather nice courier bag and I added it to their on-line store yesterday. It’s made by those very nice people over at Crumpler in Australia. They have a fantastic flash website. The videos of people trying to swap beer for other goods in the US are hilarious. I also had a look over at Paul Component Engineering‘s website too. I always wanted one of their custom made rear derailleurs…

I never really was bitten by the surfing bug, I tried it a few times. I tried windsurfing too. I actually quite liked cliff jumping, but really all the friends I made were just cool people to hang around with. Still I follow it occassionally and recently came across what big man Laird Hamilton has ben up to. Biking and Paddling from London to Paris. Good work from the big guy.

4,730Kcal, 1,500m climbing and six and a half hours riding yesterday. It was an epic ride and a full day out in the Dark Peak District. Rides in this part of the world often turn out like this. The trails are hard and technical riding and it turned out to be probably one of the hardest days riding I have done in years. My legs are still aching today from propelling me and suspending me over all those rocks – my back is fairly tight too. More photos are up here…

The saddle on Tyrrell’s Stumpy gave up the ghost at the foot of Cranberry Clough and the head of Ladybower. It was a weird break that I haven’t seen the likes of before and I think it was just a one off. As a fix we adopted the Wilderness approach and looked for some Ray Mears style solution to get us home. A chunky bit of pine branch did the business and without any tape or string stayed in place for the rest of the ride including some sketchy rock descents.

Stuff at work today made me wonder quite how TV detection works these days?

It seems to be largely based on the database of licenced users and targeting people who don’t have a licence. If you buy a TV or other related equipment like DVD players these days the retailer (well John Lewis at least) pass on your details to the TVLA so they can start sending you threatening letters (pseudo-invoices, other trumped up mailshots, etc).

The TVLA website says:

At the heart of our operation is the TV Licensing database of over 28 million home and business addresses, telling us which of these have TV Licences.

All of our enforcement officers have access to this database and will check whether or not you have a licence. If you are using a TV and are unlicensed, you could face prosecution and a hefty fine.

We have a fleet of detector vans, plus, our enforcement officers have access to hand-held detection devices capable of detecting a magnetic field when a TV is switched on. In fact, we catch an average of over 1,000 people watching TV without a licence every day.

We have a range of detection tools at our disposal in our vans. Some aspects of the equipment have been developed in such secrecy that engineers working on specific detection methods work in isolation – so not even they know how the other detection methods work. This gives us the best chance of catching licence evaders.

My big question is that if you live in a block of flats with one common shared aerial how do they work out who has a TV and who doesn’t these days when there are so many devices that are based on LCD and Plasma technology and don’t transmit the same electromagnetic fields as conventional TV sets. For example how do they detect a digital LCD TV as opposed to an LCD computer monitor?

I raise this because we’re just all be warned about the fact that individual offices at work may need to have a TV licence to watch the World Cup over the Internet via the BBC website and I’cve jsut had to issue a warning along these lines. Any way there has been plenty of discussion about this over on the Singletrackworld forum.