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Date:
2nd January 2006 The first ride of the New Year and we are joined by Tony, Paul and another Richard. As we set off up the bridleway from Holmbury YHA we have gone no more than 100 yards when my rear mech suddenly explodes! Gutted, I consider calling off the ride but send the others on a short loop up the bridleway, cutting across to Telegraph Road and back down to the Youth Hostel to try and single speed the bike. However, Tony suddenly comes racing back realising that he has an old rear mech in his van. After a few more minutes of trailside repairs, amazingly we are on our way again. Thanks Tony, I owe you a big one. It appears that the brand new chain I fitted two days ago had split on one of the links but not separated. As it moved around and through the rear mech it was too wide for the mech supports (the narrow black 'rails') and had therefore dragged these backwards, trying to wrap them around the rear cassette. Not very good for the health of the mech or my bank balance. The Prince Albert is also squeaking - two spokes are rubbing on the inside of the Hope calier as the wheel rotates. Not sure what I am going to do to fix that but it is another job that needs attention. The trails are great fun today, slippery on some of the corners on Holmbury but very dry on Pitch. We mess around on the new double on Pitch Hill and well done to Tony and Grant for clearing it - me, I was put off by the massive hole sunk in between the double and reckoned that I had already used up my share of luck for the ride. Still, it gave me time to take some great shots and some good video footage. At the end of the ride we bumped into Pete from last week, come to try and remember some of the trails we showed him.
Grant losing his front wheel in the mud
Right
click and 'save target as' to see the video
Jason
Tony
Paul
Richard (the other one)
Richard almost makes the steep roll-in but grabs too much brake and falls off the back
Grant goes large and I decapitate him
Tony clears the double nicely on his Yeti
Sam on the rejuvenated Prince Albert READ
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8th January 2006 This week we are joined by the other Richard from last week as well as Mark, a work colleague and Dan - new to the forum but he's done plenty of riding before. We tear up all the usual trails giving Pitch Hill a really good going over but there's still plenty more trail out there to be ridden. I decided to try and change my luck today by riding the Prince Albert with flat pedals. I spent yesterday afternoon swapping the front brakes on the two dialled hardtails so that the XC4 caliper doesn't rub on some of the spokes on the front wheel. This cured the squealing noise but I wasn't too hot back on the PA. It's probably an excuse but I really didn't get on with the Mavic ex721 rim allied with the Intense DH Comp 60 2.35 tyre on the front. Both are meant for downhill and are therefore really heavy and the tread seemed to roll sideways on the hardpacked stuff and steer you off in directions you don't want to take in the mud. Despite this and the rain which started up halfway round it was a great ride and I felt full of energy - even making Rob wonder what I had for breakfast! Dan cleans everything with ease and Mark gives most stuff a go but completes a great hat-trick of crashes. I haven't done the small drop at Judges Seat in a while and as I landed it hard my foot slipped right off the pedal. I ended up smacking my nuts on the saddle and then bouncing along with my hands on the bars and feet straight back in a superman stylee with all 13 stone of me being supported by my tender loins on the saddle. Ouch.
Mark goes off the smaller line at Judges Seat
and Dan takes the high line
Dan on his red Prince Albert
Richard II
Rob
Richard on the steep roll-in at CSS
Richard II. The damp weather today made taking photos difficult but I like the effect of this one
Mark
Dan READ
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14th January 2006 A Saturday ride sees me able to take Sam and Grant this week and we are joined at the last minute by the other Richard who is now becoming more regular than most of the regular riders! As usual, when Sam and Grant are with us we do more stopping and standing around everything and anything that looks as though they might be able to huck off it. Less than 200 yards from the car park Grant attempts a large ramp and as he leaves the lip his position is all wrong, front wheel diving down and he narrowly avoids a major stack although it's a very heavy landing. As usual, a video will shortly be available of the event. Richard II is growing in confidence and successfully tackles a couple of steep roll-in's including Sleepy Hollow, which catches many a rider out. Well done Rich, we will get you down Caution Steep Slope soon! We tackle a few trails we haven't done for a while and plenty of old favourites too.
Grant's heavy landing from the first jump
followed by a fall off the log roll
Richard redeeming himself at Judges Seat after coming a cropper last week
a different view of the same drop
Sam
Richard II on Sleepy Hollow or 2 Headed Dog as it's also known
Sam
Grant READ
MORE: Date: 15th January 2006 While I was out riding yesterday I had a few issues with the rear hub engaging. You know that feeling when you push down on the pedals and the hub seems to take a quarter or half turn to engage. I made a mental note and decided to have a look at it today. It's a Hope XC hub that I bought in October 2002 and it has served me well with only one other service since then so it's due for a full overhaul. The full details of the Hobe XC hub service are here. After a bit of TLC it now looks much better and the post maintenance test ride saw it performing much better. Cas and Rob dropped by on the way back from their ride halfway through the service. It looked like I picked the drier of the days to go riding! While we're on random stuff, here's the video (see below) taken yesterday and last week and edited and uploaded to a new server - thanks earlyflash!
Right click and "save target as" to download the video (8.78mb .WMV file)
The hub body exposed - covered in grime from the trails
And looking much better after the service
Ready to go on for another 1000 miles!
Rob n cas (just back from Oz) - posing for photos is not their strong suit! READ
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22nd January 2006 Huey and I tackle the route known as 'Rob's Rabbit Route' that we first did mid-way through December. A good old fashioned xc route this is a testing ride of 20+ miles. Combined with the 20 minute ride from my house to the start point and back again, it's good practice for the longer ride we are planning next week. Just the two of us (both on our dialled bikes double butted ti frames) riding keeps unforseen stops to a minimum and we keep up a good fast pace on a cold January morning. There are a few camera stops including me posing for a few pictures for Huey which makes a nice change from me taking all the pictures. A heavy frost last night has frozen the numerous hoof marks giving a bumpy ride in places offset by a greasy and slippery surface in other places but it's still a very rideable winter route. The route sees a lot of horses pass by (7 at the last count) and many dog walkers so a degree of caution is required on the blind bends and fast descents.There are also two golf courses and a railway line to cross giving pretty much the full set of obstacles! A very good ride and a satisfying ache in the legs afterwards...
Richard on the carved tree at Woodmansterne
Richard
Even though I live in suburban Surrey this is the back of Nonsuch Park, less than 400 yards from my front door and we haven't even reached the official start of the route yet
More examples of suburbia - the official starting point at Belmont and a red london bus (a number 80) in the background as Huey climbs the small crest
Huey on Park Downs near Woodmansterne
Richard
Huey near the church at Hooley
The mud is pretty claggy and has stuck nicely to the frame and around the bottom bracket - I tend not to bother with mudguards
Huey
The new dialled bikes head tube badge on Huey's frame. I need to call round to Mike's to pick mine up 21st January 2006 But that's not all - your favourite riding site featured a Saturday ride too this week with Cas, Woolly, Tim and Andrea riding the Box Hill and Back route. Here's a few pictures from Tim's mobile phone: Andrea READ
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29th January 2006 As soon as I and a couple of the others saw this route featured in the January 2006 edition of MBR we started planning to undertake the ride. The combination of a long ride and a point to point ride i.e. ending up in a different place from where we started introduced a complex matrix of logistics involving numbers that could be fitted in cars, Sunday train timetables, engineering works and a whole host of other issues. These were eventually resolved over a few pints in the Derby Arms last Thursday and Sunday 29th finally dawned cold, crisp and bright. The Devil's Punchbowl (watch that apostrophe) is a great place to start, with sweeping views of the North and South Downs and that great plain of land in between. We set off at 10 a.m. and as the article in MBR indicates, it seems to be a good couple of hours before you actually feel like you are getting anywhere. A stop for a puncture for Huey around 11 a.m and then a broken chain for me at 12-30 p.m. slowed progress further. It started to dawn on us that it would be a long ride when we stopped for lunch four hours into the ride at 2 p.m. having only completed half the distance. We had covered some great trails and there were more to come although the full frontal assault on the North face of the South Downs can only be described as suicidal. It took 25 minutes just to push our bikes up this greasy chalk section. As we crested the Downs and heading down the other side the sun was sinking fast but it felt like at long last we were almost there. Then disaster, spinning along a long flat road section my chain snapped again, this time ripping out the rear mech, just as it had done less than a month ago at Holmbury Hill. We singlespeeded the bike but without a tensioner it was impossible and we slowed to a crawl. As we limped on, we all got colder and my chain snapped at least 4 more times before we got to a point at which I could coast into Chichester in the dark with Rob pushing me along the gentle slope. Dispirited, we rushed to the train station to check the train times and within 30 minutes were all on the homeward train, never having seen the sea. This was a long, long ride and we all felt disappointed at the end not having made our planned finish. On the plus side, it was good company and we covered some great trails. Now that I have reviewed all the pictures I think that it was a good day only spoilt by the mechanicals Here's a few of the pictures but for the full story of the day check out all 73 pictures in the photo album.
10 a.m.
11:36 a.m.
12:21 p.m.
12:43 p.m.
2:02 p.m.
3:26 p.m.
3:43 p.m.
6:01 p.m. See
the photo album for all the photos READ
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