Note to self

Clever online calendars only work if you put the correct times in...

Another bike blog

Alex, of Solitude Cycles, has another blog about the 9 day, 700km stage race in the Himalayan foothills he'll be riding this October...on a singlespeed.

Madness!

Goodbye, Tony Blair

Goodbye, Tony Blair



Possibly Not Safe For Work, depending upon where you work.

(From Bloggerheads: Goodbye, Tony Blair: Farewell Video and Pardons)

Great Divide Race is go

Today is the start of the Great Divide Race. This is a self-supported race following the Great Divide bike trail, from the Canadian border to the Mexican border.

The Great Divide Race is a self-supported, solo competition following the 2,490-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Traversing Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, the route demands over 200,000 feet of climbing along it's length. Competitors carry all equipment necessary to negotiate the backcountry, restocking on food and other supplies from the small towns along the route.

You can follow the race via the Great Divide Race blog and listen to the riders' phone-ins on MTB Cast.

The Great Divide Race starts today

Today is the start of the Great Divide Race. This is a self-supported race following the Great Divide bike trail, from the Canadian border to the Mexican border.

The Great Divide Race is a self-supported, solo competition following the 2,490-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Traversing Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, the route demands over 200,000 feet of climbing along it's length. Competitors carry all equipment necessary to negotiate the backcountry, restocking on food and other supplies from the small towns along the route.

You can follow the race vie the Great Divide Race blog and listen to the riders' phone-ins on MTB Cast.

No Impact Man

No Impact Man:

A guilty liberal finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns off his power, composts his poop and, while living in New York City, generally turns into a tree-hugging lunatic who tries to save the polar bears and the rest of the planet from environmental catastrophe while dragging his baby daughter and Prada-wearing, four seasons-loving wife along for the ride.

Matt Davies

I've just discovered, via Facebook, that one of my old uni mates, Matt Davies, is Lib Dem councillor for Fortis Green ward on Haringey Council.

SSUK 2007

Last weekend I was down at Ashton Court in Bristol for Bristol Bike Fest and this year's National Singlespeed Mountain Bike Championships. I might get around to writing more here, but in the meantime there are some photos in the SSUK2007 Flickr group pool (including one with me in). Basically: bikes, beers, jousting.

It was my first off-road ride on the Solitude and it was great, even with just 1.6" tyres and a fairly rooty/rocky course. Obviously, I wasn't as fast as all the people with bigger tyres, but I wouldn't have been anyway.

Of course, I only managed 3/4 of a lap - I must have lost a couple of chainring bolts, which caused the chainring to die quite spectacularly. I had a nice push/freewheel through Bristol to get the train home...

Commenting problems

It seems that there's a problem with comments on the site - you get dumped at a 'page not found' error message.

It might fix itself, or I might eventually get around to upgrading the site, which might also fix it.

Solitude almost finished (again!)

Why didn't I ride yesterday? The 287V levers arrived for the Solitude, which means I now have a working bike after setting them up last night. I've fitted the lever for the front brake and hooked it up to an Avid V brake I had in the garage. The rear brake's still a canti but is really badly set up because there's no way of adjusting the cable tension like on flat bar levers. I was going to fit a V brake to the back as well, but I didn't have a road-type brake cable long enough. I might call in at the bike shop on the way home to remedy that.

So, this morning was my first ride longer than just up and down the street: 2.5 miles to work through traffic on the route I usually ride on my singlespeed.

I didn't die! (But I was scared.)

I clipped a pedal on a kerb when filtering slowly through traffic, but stayed upright and on a downhill the pedals got away from me a little and I ended up just having to life my feet and coast to a halt, but otherwise there were no real incidents.

I'm undecided about whether to keep it fixed for SSUK this weekend, or whether to flip the wheel and ride it singlespeed. I think the combination of a new bike, drop bars, rigid forks, 42c tyres and my first fixed off-road ride might be a bit much for me all in one go, especially when I'm not the best technical rider anyway... I'm not sure I fancy riding a fixie loaded up with camping gear through Bristol either...

30 rides in 30 days - Day 3

No ride today. I suck.

30 rides in 30 days - Day 2

You know what, I don't think I'm going to be able to fit in an hour a day without bending the rules a little...

I had a Cycle Forum meeting at the Town Hall tonight at 6:15, so I went a long way round to get to it from work, going via home to drop off my new laptop. It was an hour's worth of riding, if you include the time I was at home eating cake and seeing Sarah and the kiddies as riding.

Looking at the rest of this week: the parts I need to finish the Solitude should have arrived today so I should build that up tonight; Sarah's out tomorrow night and I need to be in for the kids and pack ready for SSUK; and I'm spending Friday at work or on the train to Bristol; so, getting in an hour a day ight be trickier than I thought...

Distance: 5.5 miles
Surface: Road
Time: (not) 1 hour
Weather: bit chilly
Bike: Inbred Singlespeed (with 2.1″ tyres, 32:16)

(Also rode to/from work/town today, which is another 5 miles.)

New Toy

I got a new laptop, to replace the Sony I've had for the last four or five years, which no longer has a working right-click on the trackpad and whose battery gives up after three or four minutes use. It's a Dell Latitude D520, running XP Pro. It has just over 2000MB of RAM more than the laptop I had at uni 10 years ago...

30 rides in 30 days - Day 1

My original plan was to take a long way home from work for my first ride, but I had to get home quickly/early. Instead, I went out for an hour just as the sun was setting, after cooking tea, cutting the grass and reading bedtime stories to E and L.

I just did a short ride out to Barmpton on the road, off-road to Brafferton and then back home on the road. Saw some cows, loads of sheep a few rabbits and a pheasant.

Time for a beer.

Distance: 10 miles
Surface: Road/off-road
Time: 1 hour
Weather: Nice and warm evening
Bike: Inbred Singlespeed (with 2.1″ tyres, 32:16)

(Also rode to/from work today, which is another 5 miles.)

30 rides in 30 days

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to ride my bike every day for 30 days.

I ride almost every day anyway, for getting to work and back, but for the purposes of this task/challenge a ride only counts if it's at least an hour long. Two rides of 30 minutes don't count - it must be a continuous hour.

I'm going to be riding some longer routes home from work, fitting in some off-road riding too, rather than just heading home by the shorted route.

Obviously, I'll report on my progress here.

Oh, I got the idea from the Swobo blog: How to avoid the bummer life: 30 rides in 30 days.