For some reason, despite a major need for one of those old carbon Proflex/K2 bikes, I have always had a fear of all things carbon. Well founded fear or completely irrational?Probably the latter and as such I recently had been starting to be swayed towards its pretty looks. Some nice Ritchey parts (seat post and bars) had found their way onto my main ride and have been great. No complaints at all with them and the actual feel of the bars is better than anything I have used before.

That opinion swaying towards the use of carbon may have been forever destroyed today by a new set of bars.  Ive been in the process of building up a 1×9 hardtail, I considered a carbon frame for the job and ended up going steel. Anyway, the finishing touches were done today, gears set up, forks tweaked and all the final adjustments to make the brakes rub free were complete. I roll the bike out the front and push down on the bars to feel the forks and I hear the dreaded creeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkk.

Hmmmmmmm, stem was done up correctly, not happy with the sound though (although I did get a similar sound on my main bike yesterday). About three seconds of inspection and there it is in all its glory, a wonderful crack in the brand new bars just where the rise is.

Paranoia has kicked in about the similar sounds on my other bike and I am thinking pretty seriously about a carbon clear out. Probably all in my head, but after almost conquering my fears I am not sure I can overcome this setback. Shame because it looks so nice.

Hopefully the manufacturer in question can sort this out, but the question still remains, can I get my head around carbon or will I forever slip back into the darkages?

Well, I’d like to think everyone was a winner on the day. I certainly had a great time and I went nowhere near riding my bike after lending out my front skewer to a rider on the first lap.

For the first time in recent history, Mr Bribe, Karel Valenta was pushed early on in the race to bribe your way to a victory (he actually bribed himself a win in the May race that didn’t happen), following cupcakes, beer and massages, Mr Bribe pulled out the big guns to run away to victory.

While lap times aren’t here, due in part to allowing all riders to hit the course at once, there were some very fast times thrown down on the day, despite that not one complaint was heard with respect to on track attitude, I’d like to thank the riders for that and it proves you can ride fast and still have a good time.

The solo field was very hotly contested as well with only 11minutes separating the top two after 10 hours.

Anyway, for those wanting them, here they are, the 10 hour results… go on, click here to get them.

G shall be along later this week with a bit of a blurb about the event as he saw it and a little story about Mr Bribe. He’s claiming his tardyness has something to do with moving and loosing hs broadband connection last week. Likely excuse….

Lenny

PS: As our mailout list does not seem to have every rider on it, if you know someone, or have a team member that did not get mail from us, please send them the link to this page.

Okay, so I’m mixed up (ask my GP who prescribes my medication) but right at the moment I find myself in a very odd place. Half way between “weight weenie” and “steel-framed, high-mass luddite”.

You see… Waaaay back in the day I first began singlespeeding because I viewed it as a simple way to dump a kilo or so off my bike. Think about it for a second: No derailleur (200g at least), no heavy cassette (300g or so), no shifters (another 200), no front mech (another 150) no triple chainrings, no cables… Bingo, 1kg straight off the top! I was riding a light weight alloy frame (Yeti ARC) and with some carbon bars, a Ti seatpost and a kevlar/carbon saddle that nearly cut my butt in half (before it broke) I was in (fairly) low mass heaven.

Okay, so the SS bit was good, and after a dalliance with shifty stuff again, I’ve gone back there. However, I decided that light but uncomfortable was not for me. I ditched my custom tweaked air sprung fork for 100mm of plush Fox Vanilla steel spring, I binned the Kevlar saddle for a 500g Brooks B17, the ally frame is gone and replaced by a steel On One Inbred, my SPD pedals are gone and replaced with flats so I can dab a foot without thinking about it…

So far so good until last weekend when I was out riding and a buddy said “Hey, can I have a shot on your SS?”. Happy to spread the word I was only too pleased to let him hop aboard, while I rode his Anthem for a while. Nice bike, really quick, but the fork had so much pressure in it, it was basically like riding a rigid front end…

Okay, so the only downside to my SS is weight and I don’t want to give up the Brooks, and yet Niner make a carbon rigid fork that at 550g weights nearly a kilo and a half less than my Fox Vanilla… (You can see where this is going can’t you?)

Yes, having foresworn the dark side of weight weenieness, I now find myself awaiting the arrival of a rigid fork (albeit a very nice rigid fork) to pop on the front of my steel framed “heavy” bike.

Watch this space (for a bloke in his late thirties bitching about how much his back and arms hurt).

EDIT: Update

Back, arms wrists etc are fine, a decent puffy tyre up front (2.35 Lopes Bling Bling or 2.4 Conti Mtn King) and you don’t even remember that you’re not on a squishy fork for most terrain.  Handling is great, bike doesn’t feel unbalanced.  I’m sold.

This week the reality of what I do on a day to day basis filled up my living room. 10 boxes of 2011 year samples fresh off the plane from Taiwan. All new 10 speed drive-trains from Shimano, wheels from Easton, and DTSwiss and more stuff than I can poke a large stick at. And no, you can’t have any of it, because 1. it’s not mine and 2. it probably is the only representation of these parts in the country. Ultimately though, for anyone into bikes, this is really like a bit of a fantasy follow up from being at the Taipei Cycle Show back in March and I know just how lucky I am to be in this position.

But there is more to this that a bike porno on my living room floor. A big part of my role at Mountain Cycle is ‘product manager’, in other words, the dude who makes to call as to what parts go on the coming year’s bikes. At first it sounds like a trip in the candy store but after you get into it, pour over spreadsheets and try to determine what will make someone buy your bike over the other (or not), it becomes a lot more serious. After all it’s all about the end number and speccing what would be your ideal bike when it’s your own cash and you are building one, in fact is something very different when you are speccing for 1000 bikes.

As I mentioned in by post about the Taiwan Cycle Show, there is a dearth of stuff available, more than you can ever know what to do with. Some of it defies imagination some of it is total crap and some of it is really cool. Interestingly when you look at what bikes come build with, one has to wonder why some of this cool kit never sees the light of day on bike shop floors. For all intents and purposes, what we see year after year is pretty much the same stuff, different graphic, different colour.

I don’t have an answer as to why this is the case. I have my suspicions, especially after working within the machine of the bike industry but I’ll leave them as that. What I do know though is that the ‘omni branded bike’ as I am calling it, is limiting some of lesser known, yet rather cool stuff that actually will make your riding better.

In my 10 boxes of stuff that I have been sifting through are several small packs of grips. I remember the meeting with the company, where we saw pretty much every style, type and form of grip you could ever think of. We also saw grips you could never think of, some really ‘whack shit’. Our search was supposed to be simple, find some lock on grips, like everyone else does. I mean, that’s what everyone else does, right?

In the line up though several grips took my eye. The first was a pair of lock on ‘foamies’. If you do a lot of XC, you’ll know that your hands get sore and the majority of lock on grips do nothing to help that. Oury have always been the choice of the astute but foam grips are the next step. The pair I was playing with felt really good but not being on a bar, you can never really tell. The second pair was a real blast, lock on grips they were but wrapped in bar tape. Yes road bike bar tape. Any bar tape, put it on the grip and off you go. The idea was novel but had a lot of merit. The wood grain tape was just trippy!

At the end of the meeting we organise samples of the boring, what everyone does grips, you’ll what they are as they are probably on your bike now, and I organise samples of the foamies and the taped versions.

Today I pulled them out of the box and put them on a couple of Easton bars to see if they still felt as good as they did sitting around a meeting table. To my surprise (and relief) they actually felt better. Lockon grips that are actually soft, that’s a novel thing and something I am sure many riders will love. I am so impressed with these grips that I have selected them for the 2011 bikes. And there’s the thing. I know I’ll get some flack for it from sales, not because they suck, which they don’t but because they are not like everything else on the market and different is, different. As we all know, different is scary.

So what’s the moral of this tale? None as such, other than different is good and I feel many product managers out there should try it on rather than take the easy road of the ‘omni branded bike’. It’s one thing to say spec only what people want to buy, but how do they know if you only offer them the same thing year in year out?

g

Mr Paul Smith’s  winter journey from Waimarama, Hawkes Bay to Karori, Wellington. 28/29 June 2010

30 hours door to door, 15 hours day one (13 hours riding), 290 km, 8 hours day two (7 hours riding), 130 km, 7 hours mid-ride rest and sleep, 1 hour fog, 7 hours sun, 3 hours overcast, 5 hours rain, 7 hours darkness, 40km state highway, 30km urban roads, 300km rural backroads, 40km off-road path, 10km singletrack, 0 freewheels, 1 gear (42:17), 1 toolkit, 1 sleeping bag, 1 set warm clothes, 1 toothbrush and toothpaste, 2 rear lights, 3 front lights, 5 muffins, 1 cooked breakfast, 8 salami sandwiches, 1 panini, 1 cinnamon loaf and jam, 1 dutch honey loaf, 1 portion hot chips, 12 litres water, 4 espressos, 1 chocolate milkshake, 4 hills too steep to ride up, 6 hills too steep to ride down (without dragging brakes), 4 disused railway tunnels, 8 logging trucks, countless friendly greetings, 0 close calls with traffic, 1 close call with an angry dog, 1 close call with American tourists (in a disused railway tunnel), 1 hour riding at night with no lights, 0 punctures, 0 mechanical problems, 0 house keys (forgotten), 1 hour frustration trying to remember where the spare key was, 4 numb fingers, 2 bruised buttocks, 1 sense of satisfaction, 2 well-earned beers.

Paul Smith

Some more news from the trail fairies at Awaba, works on the newest section of trail are all but complete. The new section represents a trail that gives riders the option to avoid the last steep pinch on the Camelback Hill climb on the Red Loop.

No longer will those wanting to access the back end of the trail (and the future trails under construction) have to conquer the red loops  Camel Back hill in its entirety, a 1.2km climb from the bottom of the chute up some moderately steep terrain.

The new addition effectively gives a bail out point toward the top just as the steepest and more technical section of the climb looms. Once on the trail it’s all down, onto Little Falcon Road and then the descent continues. In the future this trail will provide an easier way into the trails north of Little Falcon which are about to begin construction.

Bridge entrance to the trail

Trail starts its descent

Pi11wizards berms to hold you on the trail

Drainage

Chainsaw Artwork

A while back I posted about NPWS getting trail access right in Glenrock with respect to allowing Volunteer Trail days to occur (Glenrock Volunteer Trail Works) on the XC trails in the park. Well some time has passed, so I thought now might be a good time to look back at the last few months and how the trails in Glenrock have progressed.

For those who know Glenrock, the volunteer works to date have involved the reworking of the “shit happens” climb from blown out fire trail to a quality single trail section, and the tweaking of BJ’s.

What has been achieved is a testament to not only the build crew who give up a lot of free riding time, but also to the faith the NPWS have placed in those volunteers. Trail wise, these sections of trail are now not only more enjoyable to ride, but they have also proven to be more weather proof and ultimately in the long term, sustainable.

While I do think some of the access solutions contained in the draft POM for Glenrock are very positive for general XC access, other areas of the management of mtb use are fundamentally flawed (I will touch on that in a separate post in the near future). That said, I do think this has been a giant leap of faith by the NPWS to allow the trails to be worked on to ensure sustainability has been successful and the results do vindicate the risk that was taken.

Its a start, and quiet a big one that should have ramifications to other areas in NSW. Lets hope we start seeing this sort of work repeated elsewhere in the NPWS system.

Before Work – Step up into BJ’s

After Work – Finishing touches and aggregate needed on B-Line

No real point to this post, not even any form of preaching or anger. Possibly getting soft as time goes by, sorry it won’t happen again. No, I thought I would post about possibly the best ride I have had in a long, long time. Think of this as the ramblings of a bike deprived individual.

OK, keen observers out there would know I haven’t really ridden a bike offroad in a long long time. I fact my last excursion into the bush was at the Sydney 24hr back in early feb. Well on the weekend I got out and got the Ye Olde Proflex all dirty and dusty again.

I’ll have to admit to a lot of trepidation and fear before going out on this. I’ve been told to go out and be active, just not push the limits and let my back settle in again after 6 months of inactivity. My initial plan, probably very flawed, was to go for some light DH shuttles. Hmmmm, maybe not the best idea for a shagged back, so at the last minute I ditched those plans for a cruise around awaba and a beer (or two) at the end.

Now, despite being told to go ride gently ( not that I know any other way) and not grind up any hills, the thought of getting out again still scared me. Would I have the legs to get around, would my back hold up to the bumps and stress and would I actually like riding after such a big break.

Those questions were answered pretty quickly. No, my legs were not going to carry me far. Stopping, under the guise of stretching, was the order of the day. Probably need to work on some fitness and thankfully those riding with me didn’t take the piss too much. Fortunately the back held up, all though I didn’t bother to attempt to ride anything that resembled a slope nor did I hit any real speed. But for me the biggest thing of the day was how much I had forgotten how I love to ride my bike. wp-image-1483" height="412" width="550"/>

I’d forgotten just how cool it was to get out in the scrub and be free on the trails.

Within two corners I can easily say, I am in love with riding my bike again. I don’t think I really realised what I had been missing while I was off the bike, maybe it was a conscious decision to forget so I didn’t go crazy. One things for sure, right now I am almost obsessive in my quest to find excuses to get out and ride (shame its belting down rain).

Maybe there is a point to this ramble, maybe its true that you don’t miss things till they are gone, although in this case I didn’t realise how much until I got it back. Just don’t take your riding for granted, or too seriously. Enjoy it for what it is, an escape from the mundane things that we have to endure from day to day, A break from reality and weekday stress, a complete and utter drain on financial resources (OK, that’s not a good example, but you get my point).

Yes, I’m back on the bike and I couldn’t be happier. Now, if only I had another bike………..

Back at the MONT 24 hour race, I decided to be silly and bring along a costume I had worn for a friend’s 40th birthday with a 1940′s theme comprising brown herringbone trousers, suspenders, brown shoes, a white shirt, maroon tie and tweed jacket.  Just for the lark of being stupid (as opposed to fast) I wore this attire on two of my three laps of the course.  I had a blast, all who passed me (and the few who were passed by me) seemed to take pleasure in my attire.

Little did I know, at the time I was performing this “random act of tweed” that an entire tweed cycling sub culture existed.  Yes, like most other misfits, there’s a group for folks like me, somewhere out there in the interweb.   Not only that, but there’s a tweed cycling subculture right here in Canberra.

“Hey, you should go on the tweed ride.” someone said upon seeing the photos of me as an uncoordinated idiot sweating my brains out at Sparrow Hill…

Some time later, an invitation turned up in my Facebook account to come along to Canberra Tweed 3…

Having obtained a leave pass from my significant (and utterly cycle apathetic) other, I tootled off this Sunday last, to Garema Place in the centre of Canberra to see who and what would emerge from the undergrowth.

To my amazement, over the course of some 15 minutes, a range of folks appeared, dressed similarly to myself, some sporting full suspension mountain bikes, some hardtails, some modern cruisers an town bikes, some fixies and some retro pieces of vintage goodness.

At a leisurely pace, off we pedalled, over the Commonwealth bridge, across behind the Art Gallery and High Court, around to the Carillion where costumes were judge, heels were cooled, hair was let down, and the collected assemblage of some 40 individuals basked in their non lycra retrospectiveness.

Following this, we headed onwards to a venue for drinks, at which point, the 21′st century intervened and I had to make a departure in order to rescue my wife from our daughter.

No racing, no speed, no technology, no pressure, just folks enjoying getting out on bikes. (and no abuse from passers by)

Does life get better?

“Tonite I’m gonna party like it’s 1949…”

I told myself a little while back that I was going to only try and post meaningful discourse (to me in anyway) or entertaining/inspirational things. Prolly will last about a month and then I’ll start throwing up random shite again.

I stumbled on this this morning doing the rounds. As per my post about iPod apps I like and use, this one’s really interesting in helping people work out all those little niggles on their bike. The concept is totally interesting and signifies just where media is heading, especially the media that Apple (love them or hate them) is moving into the market. What I find most interesting about this is where once you had a book, which might or might not have been out of date or was soon to become so, this App should and could in theory always be up with all the latest. What’s more, unlike a book, you can have this with you when you need it most… when you are out on the bike. The interactivity is also far more intuitive than trying to leaf through a book to find a particular niggle, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and a picture that goes ‘bing’ is worth who knows how much?

You can grab it here, if you are so inclined.

g

Over the years I have written numerous bits about the (lack) of service from bike shops. It’s not a pet peeve but it does get my back up, after having spent the past 10 odd years selling to the ‘cycling community’ and now being on the front line, steering a mountain bike marquee. So that I am writing about it again, in a sad sort of way, tells me that for some of the ‘bike shops’ out there, how they view their customers could be similar to the way I view their so called customer service.

It was time to buy the Lad his first real bike. The past year or so in his ‘like-a-bike’ proved time well spent as his sense of balance grew to the point that he needed something more to do than push. Now I know buying a ‘kid’s bike’ is fraught with all sorts of dangers, mostly to do with the total crap they pass off as kid’s bikes these days. So rather than going to some big box store and picking one up cheap, I decided to the the ‘right thing’ and go to my local bike shop… LBS. Now where I live in Sydney I have several choices. Towards the city, down Oxford Street, is the well executed store that’s bang on the demographic for the areas it’s in. They have kid’s bikes but based on my past experiences with them, their ‘too cool for school’ attitude, means you basically have a target painted on you the minute you walk in (read paying them $100 service charge for shortening brake hoses), so there was little chance I was going back. The other option was the smaller, much less cool shop in the opposite direction up in Bondi Junction, where I bought the ‘like-a-bike’ in the first place. They seemed OK then, so why not again?

Be it a mistake or not, a week ago I headed down with the Lad to scope out the options. While there was next to no choice, something that didn’t bug me because at that level and price, the only thing that changes is the colour, we found a bike that looked like it fitted the bill. We (the Lad and I) stood around, looked at the blue and decided the green rocket on it is a definite feature. The (what I presume was the owner) and I discussed the machinations of kid’s bikes, had a look at the 2010 colour options and decided that with a wee discount, the blue was not a bad option. More to the point, the Lad decided that the blue was the go… but I think that was more because he thought liking the colour there and then would deliver some instant gratification. Well, no, the shop guy (SG) said he’d build a fresh one sans training wheels and if he could find one, throw on a kick stand instead. Good deal as I noticed some nice scratches on the floor model.

A week later and I realise I’d better go get the bike, there was riding to be had on the weekend! Back to the shop on the Thursday afternoon to pick up the bike I put a deposit on but what panned out I have grown increasingly pissed off about.

With a smile I say that I’m there to collect the bike I ordered the previous week. What I got back was that a new one was not built, as promised, because when the time came there was not one in stock to be built (so much for onscreen inventory). Apparently the distributor as well was plum out, though at the time the SG thought they had a wad of stock and was considering picking the lot up. Instead I was getting the one on the floor. OK, right. Sort of unimpressed because if this was the case, he made no effort to call me and ask me if I’d be happy with that – they had all my contact details and there’s a big difference between a brand new one and a floor model, especially when it has scratches; but maybe he thought the wee little discount (for last year’s stock) meant he didn’t have to? Running the sale through the till, I expected a better discount, the SG may not have noticed at the time, but originally I noticed the floor model had a $165 price tag on it. Instead, they tried to run it through at the ‘new’ price, quite a bit more than the sticker price which had since been removed from the frame.

“So that’s the price for the scratches too?” I jibed to the nice chap behind the counter.

“That bike has no scratches, I put it together before the gentleman arrived”, SG says from behind the work stand.

So I walk over, get the bike and point out the scratch that’s down to the metal on the head tube. “Oh yea… OK, I’ll take another $5 off”

!!

The final price was around $50 odd more than the original sticker price of the ‘floor model’. No small amount when the entire bike was sub $300.

I feel pissed that I was ‘taken’. Maybe not intentionally, that’s a speculation, but taken definitely by a ‘they are schmucks so won’t notice’ attitude held by a segment who work in bike shops, SG being one such person. I could have made more of a deal about it and if the bike was a bigger bike I would have. But I get the feeling SG knew I needed the bike, knew the Lad had his heart on it and knew I’d ultimately go with it to not let the Lad down. In other words, I think he knew he was taking me for a ride (no pun intended). And he got away with it. What shits me more is that today, when out and about with the bike, I noticed several other to the metal scratches on the frame, not to mention the shitty assembly job I discovered when doing some adjustments.

When I walked in the shop originally, he was bemoaning to another customer the fact that he recently had to relocate and rent was costing him double and while I guess there are shafters in every segment of society, I hate seeing it in the bike industry because there is no need for it. Instead though of choosing to do a stellar job in keeping me as a customer, SG chose to shaft me and as a result I’ll never set foot in the shop again, period.

The upside of all of this is that the Lad loves his bike and has a brand new head bruise to prove it. He didn’t notice the scratches and I made sure everything else was right. I think he’ll be a rocket when he finds his wings and really, his smile is that’s all that counts :)

g

For those in South Australia, time is running out to comment on this strategy, Make sure you email your support. Submissions will close on Friday 25th June.

Please show your support for the draft DEH trails strategy:“LINKING ADELAIDE WITH NATURE”

What you need to do to support this strategy:

Email Kain Gardner [at kain.gardner at sa.gov.au] State your interest in cycling and support for the draft trails strategy “Linking Adelaide with Nature”.

More info can be found here: http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/par…or/latest.html

Key points of the strategy:

• It’s a strategy to guide trail management of 24 DEH parks across the Adelaide hills. Anstey Hill, Black Hill, Morialta, Cleland, Belair, Sturt Gorge, Sheppard’s Hill, O’halloran Hill to name a few.

• It aligns DEH’s guiding principles and objectives with improved mountain bike access in DEH parks.

• It identifies the current inequity in trails in DEH parks, ie 500 km of trails for walkers and only 4 km of those trails allowing shared use with bikes.

• It displays an understanding of mountain bike riders desire for singletrack and vehicle tracks as opposed to only vehicle tracks, and acknowledges the diverse nature of the mountain bike community.

• It proposes a long distance off road cycle route from Gorge Rd to Sturt Gorge. This would be in the order of 60 km long.

• It recommends trail plans be prepared and finalised as follows:
  • 2009~2010: Anstey Hill, Belair, Black Hill, Morialta, Cleland, Sturt Gorge.
  • 2010~2013: Hallet Cove, Onkaparinga, Shepards Hill, O’halloran Hill.

• It recommends implementation of trail plans as follows:
  • 2010~2013, Anstey Hill, Belair, Black Hill, Cleland, Morialta, Sturt Gorge.

• It recommends investigation of the southern extension of the Mawson trail.

What you need to do to support this strategy: It’s simple -

Email Kain Gardner at [at kain.gardner at sa.gov.au] State your interest in cycling and support for the draft trails strategy “Linking Adelaide with Nature”. You can say more if you want, or keep the emails short and simple – but make sure you say you support the strategy!!!

(words borrowed from AMTBC newsletter.)

I was in the shower and the thought crashed out of the sky on me – “did we allow for sag in the head angle?” (we all have moments like these in the shower, don’t we?). Over to Skype to call up Mr. X and a conversation something like this ensued (rather abridged):

Me: “Did we adjust for sag at the head angle?”

X: “No, we don’t really allow for that.”

Me: “Well, that means when we say 70 degrees, it’s not, it’s 70 less whatever it slackens by whatever when the shock allows for sag.”

X: “It’s not a problem, because everyone does it. To change that would mean that that the buyer has no benchmark ie. your 70 will be different from everyone else’s.”

Me:”OK, I can see that…”

And I did. But when I thought about it some more, accepting this status quo is even more wrong than when I first thought about it.

OK, so what am I talking about?

Back in the days when there was no rear suspension, when you claimed that your bike had a 71 degree head tube, that’s what it had because the rear end did not sag when you sat on the bike. Today though, with full suspension bikes, when you sit on the bike the rear end (on a well designed bike) will sag X amount to create what is called negative travel. Negative travel is critical for suspension as it allows the wheel to stay in contact with the ground by loading the rear wheel. A side effect of this is that the head angle slackens by an amount and our 71 degrees slackens off to maybe 69, maybe less. See the issue?

The argument that was proposed to me was that because no one allows for this and states the head angle for FS bikes in the ‘unloaded’ state, there is no point stating the factual angle as it will confuse people when they try different bikes – a true 71 will be different to a ‘claimed’ 71. That’s a fair enough argument and if every bike on the market was a full suspension frame, then it would not be an issue. It occurred to me though that hardtails still account for many bike sales, so therefore the angles stated for FS bikes can not be used to compare against handling characteristics of hardtails.

Right, I’m hearing you saying “so what?”.

Well, that’s a fair question but as I spoke about in my last piece, MTB Misinformation, discrepancies like this only add to confuse and make it difficult to make fair and baseline comparisons between bikes of various brands. Like trying to ‘factualise’ numerous claims made by marketing departments in regards to suspension designs, I think there needs to be a more open and clear way to compare the various design and performance characteristics. ‘Reach and Stack’ is one such attempt to sort out sizing between all manufacturers of mountain bikes, initiated by Turner and transition Bikes. ISIS previously and BB30 now are attempts to standardise bottom brackets and while for a period there was some harmony, it’s on for young and old again as ‘the boys’ are at it with their respective 10 speed systems – which are also tied to BB shell specifications. It’s become such a mess now that manufacturers themselves are in the dark with some electing to design and allow for one and forget about the other, as by allowing for one, you can’t easily allow for the other. To make matters worse, a particular 2×10 engineering spec goes so far as to make designing an effective FS bike for it increasingly difficult making life difficult for their key customers, the OEM companies!

Madness!

From where I sit, I’d like to be able to line three bikes up and look at the specs for each and get a solid feeling for how they are actually going to perform before I get on them. Right now, I can grab a hard tail and know it will perform in a particular manner just by looking at the numbers, making comparing hardtails easy. If I hop on a FS with similar geometry though, the way it will behave will be guess work until ride time. This makes the task of buying difficult as I either have to guess and hope for the best, spend a lot of time riding a lot of different bikes, which is very difficult, or buy something and hope there is not something closer to my liking. Personal experience tells me that looking at the current claims of figures for most bikes tells me very little about how the bike will feel or ride.

I might be alone in this, I might not be. Judging from some of the comments made by various people I work with, I think there is a feeling for a factual comparison system and less of the deeply seeded marketing hype one that surrounds the industry currently. I personally don’t feel accepting the accepting the status quo is a good enough reason to stay with something, especially if it is counter to what should be best practice, or to the detriment of the end buyer.

g

“Never again”. It was early May 2008, and I’d just completed the Moonride 24 race in Rotorua, solo. I should have been ecstatic. I finished second solo overall and first (probably only) singlespeed. The physical and mental fatigue had overwhelmed me though. It was a tough race. Torrential rain fell for 12 hour prior to the start and turned the Rotorua trails into a quagmire. Rain was still falling as the pedals turned at 10pm, and it continued for the next six hours. By dawn, the rain, mud and late autumn cold had got to me and my short planned break to change clothes turned into over an hour of shivering in the van, trying to get some feeling back in my left foot. There were still 15 hours to go. The race did get better from there: the rain was replaced by sunshine, the course dried out and the pace quickened. It wasn’t exactly easy though, and having to ride the last five hours in the dark and cold again really wasn’t amusing.

Fast forward to August 2009 and I’d spent a year of infrequent riding and a loss of motivation for most things mountain bike. The Moonride felt like a last fling, and family expansion meant playtime focussed on children, not bikes. I reached a decision point. You might call it a mid-life riding crisis. My weight was creeping up and I got frustrated pushing up hills I used to be able to ride, and descending at the reduced speed that my rusty bike handling skills allowed. I enjoy riding so much more when I can actually ride. So I set myself a goal. I decided to race in the 2010 24 Hours of Adrenalin, the Solo World Championships. I have secured a place on the start line in October (through my previous 24 racing results), my entry is all paid up, and flights to Canberra are booked. The words “never again” have been repeated to me many times since by family and friends.

After 20 years on various mountain bikes, my riding has become simple and very defined. I search for a purity of riding experience. I want to feel and interact with the terrain. I demand an element of craftsmanship in my riding. I choose to ride a rigid single-speed bike, and I have no plans to change that. So it goes without saying that I’ll be racing in the single-speed class. Riding for 24 hours on a rigid single-speed is pretty unique and fortunately, for someone like me who loathes the idea of training, it lends itself to a unique preparation. My plan is simple. The race will require physical and mental toughness, so my preparation must develop this. The bulk of my riding will be done on my race bike, mainly because it is my only mountain bike. It will involve short fast rides at night, slogging up hills and undertaking long hard days in the saddle. For a little respite and to deal with a damp and blowy Wellington winter, I’ll turn to my other bike––an old fixed-wheel roadie. There’ll be plenty of riding with friends, and always room for just having fun on a bike.

Believe it or not (and I’m not sure I do) I’m actually looking forward to this. The last 8 months have reminded me how much fun mountain biking is. I’ve rediscovered how satisfying it is to get leaner and fitter, and to be able to ride harder, more frequently and for longer. Now that winter is here, I’m going to embrace this slight sense of masochism and enjoy my riding.

Footnote: Paul Smith is our…. well, we don’t actually have a name for what Paul does for Lab-Gear! We ‘met’ Paul quite a few years back, when he was running ‘Essence Bicycle’, importing Pace and Cotic into New Zealand. Before that, when he was living in the UK, he was an avid Lab-Gear customer. We kept in touch on and off over the years but this year, while chatting about the various things we are both doing, it came up that he had become one of the official nutters out there.

Long story short, Paul is our official, unofficial, how ever you want to look at it, NZ trail rep and kit abuser. He will be telling tales, big and small, of his adventures in NZ and further abroad as he preps up for his launch on the Solo Worlds. If you’re in NZ, say hey if you see him on the trails – he might just whip something out of his wallet for you!?!?!

Today I did something I haven’t done in years.  I took a totally inappropriate bike to ride a section of track and crashed.

This morning I had an appointment to meet a rider to show them some plans for a dirt jump project.  Turns out that he was meeting a group of locals to do some runs prior to a downhill race tomorrow.  ”Hey, come up to the track and check it out.”  ”Sure…”  So, we all trudged up the hill, to one of the highest sections of the forest that I haven’t set foot in ever, and started climbing up the track…

Now some DH tracks are technical, full of rock gardens with rocks the size of milk crates and drop offs that have an alarming similarity to the edge of railway platforms.  This was, fortunately, not one of those tracks, it was simply corners carved into the side of a steep hill.  As we trudged upwards, for some reason I stopped thinking about this as a DH track and started pondering coming back down.  I hadn’t been invited out to hit up the DH track, they just asked me to take a look.  There was no pressure or expectation that I should try, no-one to impress (no matter what, I was going to look like an utter gumbie attempting to negotiate this on my XC bike).  Still, for some reason I really wanted to give it a shot.

In a way, this kind of riding takes me back to my MTB roots.  Back in 99 or thereabouts, on a steel XC hardtail with a cheap 20mm travel fork I went with friends to the Nationals DH track out of Canberra at Blue Range and we gingerly and unimpressively picked our way down to the bottom looking like utter novices who had no idea, no skills and no place being there.  I recall feeling scared, out of my depth and not having much fun.  Today was different for some reason.

So, there I was this morning, out on a muddy hillside on my XC singlespeed with it’s skinny, shallow-tread, low rolling-resistance tyres, saddle (Brooks) dropped nearly as far as it would go trying to make it down the track.  It doesn’t take much slope or mud to overcome the grip limits of many XC tryes and this was certainly the case for me, so I picked my way down, mostly with the rear wheel locked up, front wheel on the verge of doing the same and trying to stay mainly vertical and not dabbing a foot.  Until, (as was inevitable), the back end let go during a traverse and I fell over on my side.

All I did was laugh, grin and start riding again.  Minor graze, some mud on my leg and having a blast of a time looking like an idiot.  The lower sections of the track were great, less steep, more rocks and of the type that most folks can ride down, it’s simply hard to do it fast.  I had a hoot the whole way down and we left the DH folks behind to do their training and sort out their lines and returned to noodling around the XC singletrack…

I’m generally fairly risk averse, I don’t enjoy crashing and I have a mortgage to pay, family to help support and all that jazz, so I don’t hit up dangerous stuff at all.  Today wasn’t dangerous, it was just not suited to what I was riding, and so, I crashed and looked stupid doing it.  I haven’t had so much fun on a bike as I had in those 5 minutes in years.

Why do we grow up?

Its been a long while since anything has been added in here for the Awaba Mountainbike Park, so I thought it was high time that an update was thrown up for the current state of play, particularly since a lot of you are here for the VVC classic info. I’ll come back shortly and pen an outline of what you can expect to see once the current approved trails are finished construction.

If you head out to Awaba now to ride the XC trail, you’ll notice at the trail head that there are now four main signposted routes. Each successive trail is an expansion of the trail before it. As it currently stands you have the option of;

- Orange Loop, 1.2km in length known as the kids loop.
- Yellow Loop, 6.9km’s in length. This is the bassic loop that was opened first.
- Blue Loop, 8.5km’s The first expansion incorporating some technical bits like the salad bowl and the chute.
- Red Loop,  10.2km’s and growing. This is the trail network in its entirety with the big hills.

A further blog with maps of each loop and the main trail features will be coming shortly, but for now I thought it was timely to post the latest additions to the red loop which will see it soon extended by a few km’s. This work was done on the sunday of the June longweekend with quiet a decent volunteer turnout depsite the holiday period.

When questioned on the weekends build, on of the build crew remarked, “This piece of trail passes through some unforgiving countryside and has required massive amounts of digging, but it will all be worth it once it is ridden in. Expect to find a steep pinch or two, some fast downhill sections and the biggest berm on the trail to date“.

For those who haven’t yet ventured out to the red loop, the terrain is quiet steep with an abundance of natural features to work with. Being the main trunk trail, nothing extreme has been incorporated but the terrain on offer will ensure some varied trails in the near future.

Till then, a teaser of what will very soon be opened to the riding public. For those wanting to dig, build days are the first Sunday of each month.

The new berm in its formative stages.

Full benched trails.

Hand built trails. Hard work but well worth it in the end.

One of the many new bridges.

Hopefully these trails will be open soon to be enjoyed by all. Check back soon for a detailed run down on each of the current loops and DH trail, as well as a rundown on future plans for the trail network.

I accept the fact that I’m not a “normal” mountain biker… Who knows, maybe I am? Let me explain…

I’m involved with my local club, but only through advocacy. I don’t race at all (well, okay, I’ll turn up once a year in a team of 6 or so to do a 24 hour enduro race, but it’s far more a case of camping in the proximity of a bike event than what anyone would refer to as “racing”).

I ride XC, on flat pedals.

I have a singlespeed, but it’s not a 29er (and I don’t sport silly facial hair).

I have a Brooks saddle, but I don’t ride a rigid fork.

My bike does have some light parts (steel frame, flat pedals, 500g Brooks saddle and steel coil sprung fork notwithstanding).

Pretty much the only reason I ride is for a reason most folks in mountain biking land seem to have forgotten completely. I’ll say it slowly in the hope that you will understand…
I ride a mountain bike to relax…

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy triumphing over a technical section as much as the next person, and if I can be quick and flowy it feels great, but basically, when I’m out on the bike, I don’t have to worry about all the other day to day dross that clutters my life.

Once you get involved in the “proper” mtb world, as with most sports, it all becomes “serious”.

This leaves me wondering if the families puttering about on their K-Mart clunkers haven’t actually got their heads screwed on more than the rest of us. Sure, their bikes may be heavy unreliable rubbish utterly unsuited to any place off the footpath, but if they’re together just enjoying the outdoors without a care in the world, aren’t they doing exactly the same thing that I still try to do, and doing the thing that most of the folks I know from the mtb world seem to have lost?

Go do it. Head out somewhere not for a race, not trying to beat your buddies, not trying to be fast, leave your heart rate monitor at home, stop to look at the plants, the animals, the clouds, the trees.

Go get out there just for the sake of getting out and go ride like you used to when you were a kid…

Or maybe it’s just me?

Having been in the advocacy game for more than 5 years now I was pondering the concept of the “quick win”. You know, where people ask for access from land managers, have them say “yes” and get in and build?

I must admit, I’m beginning to wonder if such a beast exists at all…

You see, in order to demonstrate to a land manager a long standing need for facilities, there needs to have been, umm, well, a long standing need. What this means is that although you might have only just asked for a particular set of facilities, bets are on that others have been asking for something similar for a fair while before you get the go-ahead.

Take the dirt jump project that I’ve been working on in Canberra for over 4 years now. We’ve finally got high level Government support, and this is great, but it took one of the Members of the Legislative Assembly to write a letter saying “this has been on the table for 4 years now, and we see the merit in it and think it should go ahead” before that high level support came through. Had a letter been sent saying “someone came in last week with this as a proposal and we think it has merit”, I doubt that the outcome would be the same.

Yes, it seems that like it or not, trail advocacy is usually going to be a long process, not one of lots of quick wins. So, settle in for the long haul and really take pleasure in the fruits of your labours (and the labours of your predecessors) when they finally do see the light of day.

To those who know me, you’ll know that for quite some time there was a definite lull in my getting on a bike. Almost like trying to get a clapped out Vespa going, over the past few years it was a bit cough, splutter, cough, wheeze… stall.

For some reason though, while up in Queensland last Christmas, I decided out of the blue to get up early and go for a ride on Christmas morning; it probably had something to do with the impending Christmas onslaught and bizzare lack of daylight saving, meaning at 5am it was light and already 20 odd degrees. That first ride, which had me discovering off-road track right next to the famous Gold Coast beach line was like a total engine rebuild and I ended up getting out pretty much every day afterward up on the Sunshine coast, rain or not.

Since then, other than a few weeks around the time I went over to the Taipei Cycle Show, I have been turning the wheels and been good about going to the gym on a regular basis. Now that it’s become cold, that motivation has definitely waned and I have not been out on the bike for a few weeks. This is not to say the legs are not turning, they are, just indoors on the bike at the gym. I am damned sure riding one of those things for 45-50 minutes is harder than riding an actual bike, because there is no ‘coast time’, it’s just pedal, pedal, pedal….. maybe that’s the attraction to single speeding? None the less, if it has not been the bike or the gym, then out the door and walking, so that 4-5 days a week, something has been happening.

But why the sudden burst that’s now in its sixth month? Well, I am beginning to think that age has something to do with it and after moving past a ‘certain age’, you suddenly realise that waiting another few months to get back on the wagon only makes it that much harder physically and worse, mentally. I have seen it before in people that I know, when that age came along it was as if a rocket was lit under their arse. For some it lasted, for others it fizzled. None the less it happened and I am wondering if that’s happening to me? A plus too I have found in all of this is that after all those years you know what your body is doing and when something goes wrong, rather than trying to fight it and make it worse, you have a more sane view and realise the faster road is to back off and let get better rather than fight it.

What’s more, that damned donut you ate takes three times the effort to loose… and who wants to give up donuts?

Next month I take delivery of the first production sample Mountain Cycle. Not a full susser but a carbon hardtail which I’ll be running with a rigid carbon fork and 2×10 as an urban menace. I have a feeling that this will be a turning point in my riding because I have not had an officially light bike for years – maybe 5? Pushing a big 6″ bike around with 1×9 gearing might get you fit but it’s as engaging on the road as watching paint dry and while I have a little section of singletrack worked out in the local park, after a few weeks it gets a little old. The idea of getting back on a bike that’s fast I am finding intoxicating and in a childish sort of way, July for me is almost like Christmas when you’re a child; I’m thinking that I might actually get back to riding some of the old road loops I used to years back.

Bike aside, I am thinking I am on the wagon once again. After six months, it’s got to the point that if I don’t do something each day, I’ll go a little potty and it gets worse… if I have not spun the legs for a few days, I start loosing the plot and that’s the sure sign of being back on board. Most importantly though is that the bike is fun again, not a pain, and riding up the hills around here does not leave me thinking I’m about to expire but rather wondering where that strength has come from. It’s even got me thinking about events later in the year, and that is something I have not done for a very long time.

So is there a morale to this blurb? Maybe. If there is it’s that maybe getting older has its advantages… maybe.

I know, I’ve called all of you with 29ers trend whores. I also know I said your even more trendy if its rigid and SS. Throw in some facial hair and you have the ultimate get up for the trendy.

Without seeking to offend anyone, particularly those hiding behind the trendy facial hair, those big wheeled bikes are nothing more than a trend, much like that snowboarding trend in the late 80’s, or full suspension bikes in the early 90’s. A blatant attempt to be cool and one of the crowd. Now, where did those trends go, where are you now Proflex??? Anyway I stand behind my comments knowing full well that it is more than likely that once again I am completely and utterly wrong. Hey, it works for me.

Well, after sustained bouts of peer pressure, I gave in. I went and got me one of those fangled big wheeled bikes. I even went full rigid for exta trend style points. I even took it for a ride…….once (or more).

Meet my new big wheeled, full rigid bike, complete with ultra cool 8-speed cassette.

Yep, thats right, I have gone all roadie on you. And you thought I would go the latest trend with a 29′er. Truth be known, that would mean I would have to actually get dirty and ride offroad. That isn’t going to happen any time soon. Meet the 1998 Trek 2300.

Seriously here for a second, I never wanted a roadie, never had the desire to ride one. Now I have it though, and yes its chock full of 90’s 8-speed goodness, I can’t believe what I have been missing. I got the bike as a means of actually turning the pedals again. On that point its been a roaring success as I still am not supposed to be riding off-road. After a few rides though, this thing is going to do wonders for my bike handeling skills.

Every ride has been met with dive bombing kamikaze cars intent on wreaking destruction, not to mention quality roads that wouldn’t be out off place on off-road single trail. Either my bike handling skills have gotten even worse (not likely) or this road thing could actually be good for not only my fitness, but also my skills.

So I ‘ve into the big wheel trend, and I might even shave my legs to hang with the cafe crowd.