The weather's gettin' better or I ain't nuthin!

2nd March 2003

Richard, Keef, new David, Mike, new Paul and Morten(?) - Rykas (not Rykers) Cafe to Redlands

A good turn-out today as the sun makes a welcome appearance. A special guest appearance from Mike who has bought 2 mates and Keef has bought David who came out with us last week. After sorting out Keef's usual mechanical (twisted chain link) we set off from Rykas Cafe, across the A25 at Westhumble and into the Denbies estate.

The climb up the escarpment of the North Downs is vicious on cold legs and soon sorts the men out from the boys (we discovered we were all boys!). However, it's not too long before the rip-roaring descent across Ranmore Common heading down towards the gated crossing over the railway tracks. this is a gnarly descent covered with large tree roots that can be treacherous at this time of the year.

Morten is on a Cannondale Scalpel but soon finds that the virtually bald race specific rear tyre (plus the fact that he squirted lube on his rear brake pads in the car park) spells trouble on the twitchy descents. He takes one major tumble over the bars plus countless minor encounters with the local greenery.

Crossing the A25 at Westcott brings us to some nice singletrack followed by a boggy field that really saps our energy.

We start to climb again as we head towards Redlands Wood. David has been to the Summer Lightning trail before and leads me directly to the trail I had failed to find on the 9th February.

This is a really great section of trail that has been built with the full permission and assistance of the Forestry Commission. Congratulations to all those at justridingalong.com and everyone else involved. A little piece of Wales in darkest Surrey.

The trail twists, dips, rises and falls through the pine forest with some great bermed corners to keep up your speed.

From here we follow the Greensand Way. This starts out as a narrow descent through a rocky gully, plunging over wooden steps that act as mini drop-offs. My rear suspension is kicking back here as I have realised it needs dialling in again (more on this later).

The trail then turns into a wider bridleway that has been churned by the 4-wheel brigade and MX'ers that allows Keef to indulge his perversion for hurtling through monster puddles trying to soak anyone else nearby. Luckily, a secondary singletrack route has been formed along the side of the bridleway that is much more fun to ride.

Due to time constraints we road it back having covered 16 miles including plenty of climbing.

Anyway, back to my suspension (or to be more precise, now to my back suspension). I dialled in the sag last year and haven't touched it since but for a while now I have been wondering why the ride has changed. On some of the climbs today I could feel the bike pogo'ing and as already mentioned, when descending on the gnarly stuff on the bigger hits the shock is bouncing the rear off the deck rather than absorbing it.

On the drive home I suddenly realised that I dialled in the sag when I was a lardy 13st 7 - 10 lbs. Since then, I have been on a health kick and am now a svelte and athletic 12st 10 - 12 lbs, thus the over-compensation. That's another job to sort out before next week then...

9th March 2003 Richard and Mike - The Big 8

This week I have been mostly trying to sort out my rear shock. The bushings need replacing but the shock is neither Rock Shox nor Fox (that all the other 2001 enduro models use. It is a no-name taiwanese coil over shock. So I took it in to Cycle_surgery in Spitalfields one lunchtime. They gave me a couple of 2nd hand bushes from another bike that weren't perfect but are at least tighter than mine. They also recommended that I send the shock to Mojo or TF_Tuned_Shox for servicing which would include replacing the bushings.

I was a bit doubtful of this (whether the bushings would be replaced) so called to check. Spoke to Mr Shock himself, Tim Flooks who pretty quickly diagnosed that I had a Taiwanese shock that could not be serviced anywhere in UK - great!

So back to the drawing board. At least after fitting the 2nd hand bushings onto the bike and dialling in the correct sag (following my recent diet) I was ready to get out and ride.

Mike and I thought we had better get in some training for the Marin_Rough_Ride as it's only 12 weeks away - all 50 miles of it. so we headed for the hills to ride our favourite local route.

Mike

We both felt really good today and raced around the 17.5 mile route. With an additional round trip of 7.5 miles for me (to get to the start point then back to my house) that's half the length of the rough ride. Now we just need to do the same again with some real mountains.

Good job we are off to Cwmcarn next week.

23rd March 2003 Richard and Mike - The Big 8

The weather's been outstanding this week. It's amazing how much better you feel and how much more ridin' you feel like doing when the sun's out.

The trails are bone dry as Mike and I repeat the Big 8 route - one of our favourites. Mike has managed to get out for the last four weeks and has reached his best level of fitness for some time and so we race around the route in record time barely pausing for breath.

We rip it up down the final downhill and return to the car-park with big grins. Roll on next week and let's hope it remains sunny.

yes please!

The beast, now with Hope discs on both ends

28th March 2003

My training for the Marin_Rough_Ride kicked off in earnest this week. To get me ready for those 80 off-road kilometres, I thought I had better get a few more miles under my belt.

Prompted by the dry, sunny mornings and a guards strike on my commuter line into London Bridge, I have started cycling to work instead. I am very lucky in that I have secure parking, showers and a flexible approach to what time I arrive in the office.

A 28 mile round-trip through the London rush hour is pretty exhilirating. There are literally hundreds of other cyclists out there and I find myself in little battles with them as we race off from each set of traffic lights.

At one set, as I pulled away from a standing start, a cycle-courier went flying past me (he had been about 10 metres behind me and had a rolling start as the lights changed just right for him). I could see the smirk on his face saying "slow old git". I got my head down and into the big front ring and was soon on his tail as my road bike was much more efficient than his mtb and I am a lot fitter than he expected. He started to glance nervously behind as I stuck with him for literally miles until our journeys split. That's one up for the 30-somethings then!

The best thing is, now I get to do this every day and I can't wait to go to work tomorrow - sad huh!

If you don't get it, it has probably been blocked by your office firewall - stop browsing and get on with some work! (not really, carry on looking at my site). Try from home to get the clock.

Top