Category Archives: bikes

bikes, combe raiders, food, friends, GPS, MTB, UK

Christmas Rides

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It’s been a bit quiet on here recently – mainly because me riding pretty much every day for the last four weeks is not all that interesting for anyone but me (& the odd other bike nut).  I’ve upgraded the wheels on my Surly Ogre to Stans Arch rims & tyres to Nobby Nics – it’s a marked improvement in weight, grip, reassurance, acceleration, rolling resistance &, most of all, fun.  The following week there was a rather chilly night spent bikepacking out in the New Forest just north of Burley somewhere.

Then Christmas ride season began – first up with the biggest group of Combe Raiders I’ve ever seen:

This on the strangely misty Quantocks – & quite damp under wheel as well. Dave got stuck on a stick:

Much to my surprise, I won the hill climb (by getting the furtherest up a rather steep & technical ascent) – I was well pleased with my giant certificate (that’s a large & very good paperback on the left).

After not really earning it from a less than twenty kilometre ride, it was off to a nearby pub for the award ceremony & an awful lot of food.  Great time had by all – although I had to go for a harder ride the following day to get the most out of my two hundred mile round-trip.

This weekend past I managed two more Christmas rides – and associated meals of course.  The Vindaloo group of the local MTB club (which I ride with if I’m around every second Sunday – so hardly ever over the past two years) had their Christmas ride & curry planned very local to me on Friday night.  The bikes decorated with Christmas lights and wrapping paper and the costumes made the whole thing seem a lot more festive than the Combe Raiders event.  It was only a short local ride, but it was a nice warm, dry evening & there was plenty of good food.

For some reason I thought it a good idea to ride my single speed twenty-odd kilometres to the Christmas ride & dinner for the whole club – this after seeing a rather dismal looking weather forecast.  Anyway, it rained pretty much all day – but it wasn’t cold.  Annoyingly, my front brakes failed about thirty kilometres in – so I rode most of the day with rear brakes of dubious usefulness (just as well the Forest is almost entirely flat).  Somewhere out near Burley & Picket Post our fearless leaders started to get a little vague in our route – just as we got out of the trees onto the heathland in the driving rain.  Oh well – we made it back to the pub eventually for another huge meal.  It probably was just as well I had to ride all the way home – wasn’t really intending to do close on eighty singlespeed kilometres for the day, but I survived & really quite enjoyed it.

around home, bikepacking, bikes, UK

Overnight ride – trying out a lot of gear for the first time

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Friday past I finally got around to trying out almost all the new kit I’d acquired over the summer on a rather easy overnight bikepacking trip with a couple of guys from the local club. For those not really interested in bikes, I didn’t even take any photos as it was pretty much all in the dark – so sorry about that.  I’ll cover the ride first & then give some initial impressions of the new gear.

All week I’d kept an eye on the forecast for Friday night – as the weekend approached, the expected temperature kept dropping.  So my bike was a bit more loaded than I initially thought it would be as I met Mike & James at Chilworth Arms for a quick pint before heading out into the winter’s night.  It’s been about a year since I’ve been on a night ride, my single handlebar light set-up is adequate but nothing fancy.  I’d forgotten how much fun night-riding is when it’s not raining or ridiculously muddy.  We mostly rode bridleways & farm tracks due north – connected by the odd country road.  Being Hampshire, there weren’t really any climbs of note, although the Beacon Hill downhill was enjoyable & comparatively long.  The pace was nothing too strenuous, which I was happy to go along with as I got used to riding a heavier bike than usual.

With an almost-full moon out I was loving riding through the countryside that could have only been English – reminded by the silhouettes of very cute villages; in the daylight it all looked very expensive, but in the dark the detail was lost & it just looked nice.  By nine o’clock it was time to stop at our northern-most point, Crawley, and head for dinner at the lovely Fox & Hounds.  For some reason the other two weren’t content with a few pints and dinner – I wasn’t prepared to try & keep up as the Jack Daniels & Coke and brandies flowed.  It was all very enjoyable and I haven’t been quizzed on so many details of New Zealand for a long time.  Those drunker than me were quite surprised by the size of the bill, but that was eventually settled and as the bar staff declared we were quite mad, we rolled away at one o’clock – some in straighter lines than others.

The chosen camp area was about an hour back south (on a more easterly route – closer to Winchester) and somehow I (the only one who wasn’t familiar with the area) ended up navigating.  I’m not sure what the villagers of Sparsholt must have thought about much laughter when Mike managed to ride into a large & obvious hedge & then fall on the ground.  We made camp at two o’clock and settled in for the night – I was declared soft for having a tent, the other two happy to sleep with no cover on a fine frosty night.  Not surprisingly, we didn’t stir until nine-thirty on a cracking Saturday morning.  After a light breakfast & decamping we were riding shortly after the hour back to my car.

So a very manageable introduction to bikepacking that I thoroughly enjoyed – helped by some superb weather & good company.

Now for some quick thoughts on those items I was using for the first time on a bikepacking trip. Below is a photo of the set-up that is almost as I used on the weekend – the main difference being the dry bags were fully loaded due to the clear, cold night.

The thirteen litre dry-bag on the handlebars is secured to a Wildcat Mountain Lion harness. The dry-bag was packed to the gunwales with my tent & poles and winter sleeping bag. The harness held it securely, although on the return trip I had to tighten the straps as I must’ve repacked it differently. I did find that with the dry-bag so full, I had to lock the front fork out as the bag would rub on the front tyre if the fork compressed too far – I don’t expect this to be a problem for most of my bikepacking in summer as the bag won’t be so heavily loaded.

On the back of the saddle, the eight litre dry-bag is held in a Wildcat Tiger. In the picture, it isn’t loaded very much – but it definitely was for this trip. At first I thought that I wouldn’t be able to fit the full bag in, & even if I could it would rub on the rear tyre. But some careful adjustment of the straps had the bag in the harness & securely held. I was very impressed by how stable the bag was – it didn’t swing around at all; in fact, I occasionally had to turn around to check the dry-bag was still in the harness – so oblivious was I to its presence.

In the middle of frame is the custom-made (you trace your frame on to a piece of cardboard & send it to them) Alpkit Stingray frame bag.  I’ve had this for a few months, so know that it performs just as it should – for this ride I’d stuffed it full of all sorts of little things, I’ll have to get a bit more organised for longer tours.

My water carrying for this little trip was courtesy of two bottles attached to each leg of my front fork – not shown in the picture (the bottles, that is).  For this I’ve got two monkii cages mounted on monkii clips – as I’ve swapped out the rigid fork for a suspension fork there are no longer any cage mounts.  The clips are secure and I don’t have a problem carrying a full 750 mL bottle.  However, while it is possible to carry a one litre Nalgene bottle on the cage, if it does get bumpy the bottle can escape – so it’s worth securing it to the fork.  I need to rethink this a bit.  Also, while having bottles mounted on the forks is good for carrying water – it’s no good for hydration while riding as it’s a faff to have to stop to drink.  So I need to get a bottle holder on the handlebars somewhere.  I found on this trip I didn’t drink at all while riding – that was OK as it was pretty cool, so dehydration wasn’t a problem (the pub stops helped too). But in warmer conditions, this would be a problem.

I’ve also got a tiny meths stove – it’s only good for heating up enough water to make a cup of porridge or a hot drink.  It’s suitable for such a small trip, but I’ll have to get around to making some sort of penny stove out of a beer can for larger cooking requirements.

I’d been eyeing up various lightweight single-person tents that I could easily carry on my handlebars for some time when Megan mentioned that she was keen on the Six Moon Designs – Skyscape Trekker.  It ticked all the boxes I needed it too, so I rather hurriedly bought it (much to Megan’s chagrin) and arranged to have it shipped to Boston during my recent visit – craftily avoiding high shipping costs & twenty percent VAT. It definitely is lightweight & the material is subsequently very thin – but I haven’t torn it yet; most importantly, it’s very easy to carry on the bike.  I had one practice run a couple of weeks ago pitching it in a gale out in the New Forest – I managed that OK, so five pegs & two poles at two o’clock in the morning was a cinch.  I did notice that my thermarest Neoair does tend to slide around a fair bit on the floor of the tent when I moved in my sleeping bag – possibly not helped by the slight incline I was on.  It seems good so far, more nights sleeping in it will show if that’s correct.

That’s probably enough gear reviews for one post.

Africa, bikes, event, GPS, MTB, travel

Rift Valley Odyssey – Day Three

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Huzzah – I slept reasonably well & managed to have the appetite for a reasonable, but not too large, breakfast before another seven o’clock start.  With those things combining & a relatively short stage (only 77 kilometres, but with half the climbing of each of the other two days) it was a bit of a cruise for me.  We started out on the road going west in the same way as Day Two – but kept going west instead of turning south into the big hills.  The gentle climbing started at about the ten kilometre mark & it was only a shade under four hundred metres up over twenty-five kilometres – very civilized compared with the previous two days.

Sporting a new Combe Raiders shirt at camp

Stage starts weren’t the most formal of affairs

There was a great little descent before the first feed station and then the long gradual climb through a large wheat farm started in earnest through an awful lot of mud.  Cloudy again, the views afar weren’t fantastic – but the acacia trees in the wheat fields were pretty nice against the dark sky.  With the fast descent off the hills of wheat done, there was a cool bit through a canyon where we had been told the night before to not necessarily follow the trail on our GPS (the whole race was navigated by GPS – there were no signs or so on), but just make it to the bottom in whichever way we thought best.  This was great fun as I cleared some nice technical drops and then bashed through some trees before it opened up & got fast.

The last part of the day before the road ride back to camp was through another conservancy – the usual suspects were all out: zebra, various antelope, monkeys, giraffes.  Also we managed to startle a herd of wild buffalo – I wasn’t quick enough to get a photos of these huge guys, & we were rather glad they didn’t hang around.  The day’s ride was over much too soon at 12.30 – I felt I could go around again, but some of the team weren’t so keen as we all suffered some degree of soreness from saddles.  With a welcome back by the rest of the team’s wives & children we settled in for some well earned pizzas.

Not too shabby considering I was riding when I took this

Pretty happy to have that finisher’s medal around my neck

So that was my RVO experience – a great time (vomiting aside) and one which I was adequately prepared for as my legs didn’t exactly suffer.  My knees ached a little at the end of the first day and the beginning of the second, but considering all the climbing were pretty well behaved.  The weather was mostly great for riding (the exception being the downpour at the end of Day Two) – pretty cloudy, not too hot, no huge winds to battle; unfortunately this meant that the panoramic photos are not great – but as I’ve already been to Kenya & seen plenty of wildlife, taking photos wasn’t really a priority of the trip.  Well pleased with the event & how I survived it.

Africa, bikes, event, GPS, MTB, travel

Rift Valley Odyssey – Day Two

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Considering the big day previous, the night’s sleep was once again quite broken.  But up anyway at 5.45 for breakfast, some bike tinkering and a seven o’clock start on the second day of the RVO.  The day started off pretty flat as we took the road around the lake for about fifteen kilometres before turning left and the climbing started in earnest.  There was the odd flat section & short downhill respite, but generally it was solid climbing – over 700 m to 2700 m in about seventeen kilometres.  It was all ridable apart from one short section near the top that was too steep & technical.  But it sure was hard work with the sun beating down.  AD seemed to find some legs from somewhere and rode like a champion.

The feed station at 2700 m was welcome and we rested there a little.  The food was perhaps a little too good as it would seemed I ate too much as something very odd happened as we started down the monster downhill that we had very much earned.  It may have also been a very common reaction to the anti-malarial tablets I had been taking – but as the descent opened up & I bumped around a bit more, I started to feel decidedly nauseous and queasy.

For the first time in more years than I can remember, I was vomiting; once that was over we set off again.  Not to last long however, as as I waited for Bobby (he was a little hesitant of excessive speed – not surprising as the mechanics could do nothing for his air bubble-ridden rear brakes overnight) I had another good effort at reintroducing my food to daylight again.  As we had over 760 m to drop in sixteen kilometres, I was at this stage beginning to wonder how I was going to get down such a fantastic downhill (i.e. quite bumpy & fun) when I couldn’t hold my stomach down.  But a combination of not having much left in my stomach, taking smoother lines & taking it easy waiting for Bobby (Sean & AD blasted on ahead in my hour of need, the cheek) and determination saw me to the bottom of the rather fantastic downhill no more the worse for wear.

It was still pretty warm & the lack of food intake (what energy I had consumed was mostly no longer with me either) made any climbs a little more challenging than they would have otherwise been.  At the final feed station I managed a couple of slices of apple and a gel – enough it turned out to get me through the last fifty kilometres of what turned out to be one of the tougher days on the bike I can remember (not due to the terrain, due to the food issue).  Most of the rest of the way was fairly easy valley floor through Hells Gate on gravel road, but there was one nasty shock at the end – a steep 250 m climb to overlook the lake beside which we were camped.  After all of the rest of the day, it was pretty unrelenting – but we had to make it to the top as big storm clouds were rolling in.

Just as we did make it to the top, the storm broke and what would have been a fairly difficult start to the downhill (very deep & loose gravel) just became more unpleasant as we got absolutely soaked dropping 330 m to the road.  It was fun enough after a kilometre or so, and then all the rain turned the hillside in to a myriad of streams that we followed down.  As we neared the field at the bottom all those streams had combined into an instant raging torrent that we had to cross – as the motorbikes were behind us, we let them go first to gauge the strength & depth of it.  It definitely wasn’t ridable, but it looked OK to walk.  An incredibly strong current didn’t quite wash us over a newly formed waterfall, but did soak us to above our knees and completely fill our socks & shoes with stones & silt.  After stopping briefly to reinflate Bobby’s rear tyre (his tubeless worked as it should on the climb) we made it back to camp, food (of which I forced myself to eat a vegetarian pizza) and warm-enough showers before the heavens opened again.

With the stomach issues and that nasty last climb, this was definitely the hardest of the three days for me – as much climbing as the first day, but in twenty or so less kilometres distance and noticeably warmer.  For the first time in days, I slept rather well (considering I was camping) that night.