The forecast was not looking looking good , temperatures were not going to be sub zero but it was going to be wet – it wasn’t looking like the the biblical rain we experienced at Afan in 2007 but not the crisp dry conditions you would have liked on a Christmas ride. Despite the grim forecast fifteen riders braved the weather and turned up ready to ride.

Karl, Mike, Cobba and Kinda

The first section from the car park claimed the first puncture of the day, unfortunately it was me and all down to a newb error of too low tyre pressure – something I was going to address before we left but forgot! Switching out the tube gave the rest of the group time to spin up to the top of the first climb and have a good time to recover. With the main climb out of the way the fun started with some downhill single track. Shortly after the fun stuff started we had another puncture, this time Chris W. We left Mike to sort this out as he Chris and Will would easily catch us up .

Throughout the next few sections Sticky was loosing air so while we stopped to wait for Mike he changed the tube. Mike was taking his time in catching us up so we called him to make sure everything was ok but it turned out that the puncture had been caused by an pile up with Chris and Will and Will was still suffering so they abandoned the ride for a trip to A&E to get checked out.

Sticky - puncture no. 1

Ade

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful letting us enjoy the singletrack (apart from Sticky having yet another puncture). We had light showers throughout the day with only a couple of heavy downpours but nothing to dampen our enjoyment of the ride. The trails were wet but very rideable with only the odd corner being affected by breaking bumps. As we neared the end of the ride those of us who had ridden the trail before knew that the Marin saves the best till last and it didn’t disappoint. As we exited the final sections everyone was grinning agreeing it had been a great ride and although it had been wet we hadn’t really noticed the rain.

Once again we’d had a great ride with great company, here’s to plenty more great rides in 2012.

Read about it here: Fat bike proto in testing | Products | News – On One Bikes.

]]> http://www.wmmtbforum.co.uk/blog/?feed=rss2&p=775 0 http://www.wmmtbforum.co.uk/blog/?p=759 http://www.wmmtbforum.co.uk/blog/?p=759#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:54:10 +0000 Col http://www.wmmtbforum.co.uk/blog/?p=759 Ringo and Keef made it to Ireland for the 2011 Single Speed World Championship. Here’s what they got up to…

In addition to the biking there was the opportunity to camp and enjoy the social gathering on into the night. Those who didn’t stay missed out on the delights of Deaky’s cheese board and the re-lighting of the barbecue for some late night burgers.

The competitors and their rides

1. Tooney – A shabby looking folding bike featuring a rather dubious hinge.

2. Rick Spangle – A folding shopper complete with basket (filled with bottles of beer for the judges) and accesorised with a variety of horns, bells and tassels.

3. Col – Going with a retro vibe with an original Raleigh Burner complete with after market stunt pegs.

4. Johnnymac – Disappointingly JM had sourced a mountain bike that was far superior to his main bike that lacks gears and suspension.

5. Stu McGroo aka Mr Orange – No surprises that Stu’s bike was orange… what was slightly unexpected was Stu was also orange! Orange face paint, shower cap, even an orange nappy/loin cloth. It paid off though with Stu gaining maximum points for his fancy dress efforts.  Stu brought another mountain bike to the challenge but his was far more appropriate to the challenge as it was lacking a rear brake.

6. Deaky – Town bike fitted with a dynamo powered light, mile counter and a diy basket for that essential supply of beer.

7. Stuthebadger – Another mountain bike… but it turned out the rear hub was suffering for a bit of metal fatigue!

8. Sticky – A massive road bike.

9. Jas – His everyday fixie commuter. Not much effort put in but much respect for riding the challenges fixed!

10. Ben – A late entrant, but managed to acquire a folding bike at the last minute.

Scrutineering

Challenge 1: Prologue – egg and spoon

Well it wasn’t an egg, that had been substituted for a potato… that had been duct taped together due to a pre-event accident! One at a time riders negotiated a short lap of the campsite and were timed penalties were given for dropping the potato and cheating! Deaky completed the course in the fastest time and without any penalties Rick Spangle droped the potato the most times and had most falls but didn’t come last that honour was Tooney’s who even though didn’t have quite as many penalties had a slightly slower time.

One man and his potato

Results:

1. Deaky -1:08
2. JM – 1:12 (1 drop)
3. Col – 1:29 (1 drop)
4. McGroo – 1:30
5. Jas – 1:33 (1 drop)
6. Ben – 1:43
7. Sticky – 1:44
8. Stuthebadger – 1:55 (2 drops)
9. Rick Spangle – 2:04 (4 drops)
10. Tooney – 2:10 (3 drops)

Challenge 2: Endurance race

The endurance race consisted of two laps of a roughly two mile course featuring a variety of terrain: lots of twisty rooty bumpy singletrack, a fast gravely descent, a short section of climbing and a bomb hole.

No brakes!

From the start the pack kept quite close together. Everyone raced down the gravelly descent probably a tad too fast taking in conisderation the functionality of a lot of the brakes. Jas’ chain skipped off as he bounced down the descent causing him to fall to the back while he stopped to sort it out. At the climb the pack started to spread out with JM taking a clear lead thanks to the gears and ‘big’ wheels of his mountain bike. I (Col) emerged at the top of the bomb hole in second place but there was no way I could keep up with JM with the gearing and small wheels of the Burner. Out on the flat Jas soon reclaimed places as he powered along with the road gearing of the fixie.

Around this time the challenge claimed it’s first victim with Sticky breaking a pedal off! He was left with a stub of an axle to complete the challenge on. He persevered on and finished 9th despite the failure. Deaky was also suffering as he suffered a puncture. Not letting it deture him he continued on with the flat to finish last.

Winner!

Despite Si’s clear directions of the course a lot of competitors took alternative routes through the campsite section deviating from the NPS trail!

Results:

1. JM – 21:52
2. Jas – 24:08
3. Col – 25:25
4. McGroo – 24:35 (cheated)
5. Tooney – 25:17 (cheated)
6. Stuthebadger – 25:55 (cheated)
7. Ben – 26:12 (cheated)
8. Rick Spangle – 26:20 (cheated)
9. Sticky – 26:40 (cheated)
10. Deaky – 28:36 (cheated)

Challenge 3: Skidfest

Challenge 3 saw the competitors demonstrating the effectiveness of their hack bike’s brakes. Tooney went first and completely missed the braking line! Claiming it wasn’t visible enough he was allowed to retry. Standout moments were McGroo braking by placing his foot on the tyre as he didn’t have a rear brake and Jas attempting to lock up the back wheel of his fixie!

Skidz McGroo style

Unbeknown to the riders the winner was the rider who’s brakes were least effective. Ben walked away with first place by not managing to pull off a skid at all.

Results:

1. Ben – 0m
2. McGroo – 8.35m
3. Stuthebadger – 11.6m
4. Col – 13m
5. Deaky – 14.2m
6. Jas – 18m
7. Rick Spangle – 18.3m
8. JM – 22.5m
9. Sticky – 27.2m
10. Tooney – 30.1m

Challenge 4: Sprint knockout

The sprint knockout saw the competitors racing each other down a narrow trail with the rider coming in last being eliminated from the next round. This was repeated until we had a winner.

Carnage waiting to happen

Deaky was the first to be eliminated but then he did still have a flat rear tyre. Three rounds in and there was a dead heat between myself and Ben. Racing head to head Ben just clinched the win in the last ten metres or so as my Burner spun out of gearing.

The following rounds were uneventful until the semi final – JM, McGroo and Jas. As Jas got on top of his gear McGroo and JM battled it out before getting tangled and crashing. Both got up quickly but JM’s chain had come off. McGroo ran to get started again but his nappy was slipping down to his ankles!

In the final Jas clinched it from McGroo.

Results:

1. Jas
2. McGroo
3. JM
4. Tooney
5. Rick Spangle
6. Ben
7. Col
8. Stuthebadger
9. Sticky
10. Deaky

The final results

Exhausted from the afternoon’s challenges everyone kicked back with a beer while the barbecue was fired and the judges mulled over the scores to finalise the overall standings. Taking into consideration the individual event placings, the hack bikes and any other discretionary points this was the final result.

1. Stu McGroo – 2020 points
2. Rick Spangle – 1567.5 points
3. Deaky – 1347.65 points
4. Tooney – 1190 points
5. Col – 1189 points (if only I’d accessorised!)
6. Sticky – 1174 points
7. Ben – 1143.5 points
8. Stuthebadger – 960 points
9. JM – 628 points
10. Jas – -34 points

Thanks

A big thanks to Si for arranging the afternoon and everyone else who helped out to make the afternoon a great success. By the sounds of things everyone would like to see the event return for next year. I know I’m starting to think about my ride for next time!

Despite a few minor hiccups they have turned out great. It looks like there is enough interest for another order so if you want to get your hands on one register your interest soon (there is a link on the forum).

Many thanks to cycle-clothing.co.uk for their custom services (mention WMMTB Forum pointed you their way!).

Pre race, I did the usual….signed on, rode practice lap (crashed during this) took in the event as a whole…..Giant, Rabobank, Team Scott, Torq etc all there in force! I must admit that as I rode to sign-in on my battered old Rockhopper and passed hundreds of carbon superbikes I felt waaay out of place and very much out of my depth!

The course itself was pretty good fun to ride – like a cross between Cannock and Thetford….tight, twisty trails with lots of trees up close, with only slightly more height gain than Thetford. Bone dry, very quick and didn’t really suit me at all (although I’m very pleased with how my technical riding is improving this year, and in the race I actually made up time on the singletrack which wouldn’t have happened this time last year). Middle 2k was pretty technical with lots of tight bombholes etc but it was a fun course to ride.

I warmed up on my turbo trainer alongside Alex and his friend James under the Lichfield gazebo-I felt like a bit of a pro I must say! Gave my bottles to Chris Welburn (who is chuffin great a giving me my bottles) necked an energy gel, and made my way down to the start. Here I was greeted by 300 shaved leg whippets who all looked pretty serious. At this point I’m thinking that entering was a bad idea and am really very nervous – I keep telling myself to just gun it from the start though. I’m gridded 64/67 so have it all to do!

The whistle goes, and bang my nerves vanish for a moment and I’m away. I’d got space in front of me, so just aimed at that, started in 44-16 and with five seconds I’ve got off to an absolute screamer! I go past the first two rows before they’ve clipped in, and in the first 200 yards make up about 25 places. Carnage though – huge crash on the right takes down at least 10 riders, with carbon frames being cracked etc! Wide 180 degree right and left hand turns follow – I nail the line and take another 10 places for free pertty much! (Pretty easy this national series malarkey is). Small straight singletrack descent follows then onto a shallowish fire road climb… at this point I ruin my own race by thinking ‘f*** me I’m about 25th here and a climb is coming up – I’m gonna be right in the mix’ – NOPE!!! The ‘climb’ is shorter than Pepperslade but of a similar gradient – I’m close to the limit but could probably have pushed harder – I was still doing around 15-16 mph though……… easily 20 and probably more people fly past me like I’m freewheeling – I regain all of my ‘out of my depth’ mentality and go into reverse….. the rest of the lap is carnage. I go for a drink a third of the way round and my bottle isn’t there (2nd time in two weeks ffs!) Someone rides into the back of me, knocks my rear mech and I have to double shift both in and out of the gears in the middle of my cassette. End of the lap and I’m 6th to last! Second lap starts and I get caught by the elites… first three come past fine then right in the middle of the technical section a large group comes through – I get off and let them past and lose 30 seconds on that lap!

I cheer up at this point, start baiting and heckling any rider that I see including the elites and in general really enjoy it (although it does really fookin hurt). Pretty uneventful after this tbh…. I finish pretty strongly gaining a few places on the final lap. Finish 50/67…. pretty unhappy with it, because I think I could have ridden harder, but ultimately I’m nowhere near fit enough to make any sort of impression on the race! The leader of our race on the first lap, went 3 seconds faster than the winner of the Elite race though!

I will be back next year, and I will be fitter! Absolutely loving racing!

- Tom B

Gathered at the end of the first singletrack

Now, we had a few Penmachno first timers with us and the first climb didn’t disappoint! After a bit of a breather and the repeated complaints of over estimating the number of layers needed we were into the singletrack… that up hill singletrack. But no sooner had we started the flow stopped, the leading rider had stalled on a slippery washed out section of trail. After the obligatory mockery we were off again. Another section of singletrack and we had our first faff – Potter had a flat, not that many were complaining it just provided more time to get our breath back and for banter.

Potter's puncture

With the tube replaced we pressed on. More climbing and the first indications of ice, not frost but thick ice! We were soon back into the fast flowing singletrack that we all love Penmachno for – well I think Tom still loves it, it had been nearly a year since his off.

The second puncture of the day came just after the switchbacks, this time it was Ade’s mate. It seemed like a good opportunity to get the jelly babies out! Once we got going again we headed out on to the newer sections, the flowy trails getting rockier but equally as enjoyable. We were soon climbing again, round the second set of switchbacks and back up to the forest road. Soon came the long board walk sections through the trees, word has it that there might have been an incident by the leaning tree…

Puncture #2

The final section before the dark wood singletrack had us tearing down the hillside by the dry(ish) rocky stream bed, every now and then having to negotiate patches of thick ice cover the trail. Of course these icy patches where nothing to the ice of December 2008. At the road we hit a diversion, a few hundred metres up the tarmac and we could see why, The FC tractors were out in force harvesting.

Classic singletrack

Quite quickly we were at the clear fell climb and it must have been the first time of riding at Penmachno that the air was completely still. Saying that it was still hard work climbing to the top! The descent was equally as hard on the legs but much more enjoyable – even with the large sheets of ice covering the trail in places. The next short climb lead us to one of the fastest sections of the trail, smoother flowing singletrack, everyone was grinning at the end of it.

Fantastic Welsh scenery

With only two sections of singletrack left we were almost done for the day but like most of Penmachno you can’t let your concentration wander. The pace picked up as we swooped down the singletrack, I find I need to reign it in a bit as my back wheel slips out on a slippery rock. Everyone is riding on the edge and Sticky follows my line and hits exactly the same rock. As we exit the trail a bemused family watch on, as they hold on to their dog we zip out of the trail a bit unsure of which is the best line to take as the exit has eroded away. Blating down the track we hold up away from the exit waiting for the last few riders. After a while Mick and Chris still haven’t reached us – Mick’s stacked it on the exit. Fortunately not too badly but he’s got some scrapes, more embarrassingly it was in front of the audience but luckily not fifteen other riders! This also meant that we weren’t able to get any photographic evidence and to add to that Mick waited for us to all ride back up the hill to see what had happened to them!

With the final forest road slog out of the way all that was left was the final fast rocky section. With everyone tiring and their confidence high this is prime off territory. Luckily everyone got back safely with the three rigid 29ers getting back first! Packed away we headed back to the Country Cooks cafe on the A5 where the service was double quick and the food good.

So that was 2011′s first forum away ride of what will hopefully become regular outings. Plans are already being made for the next one – who’s up for that?

Riders: Col, DogEars, Sticky, Tooney, Ringo, the Yank, Bat, MrGFisher, Potter, Rich, ASC, Wag, Rick Spangle, Sketch, Gears McGroo and Space Cowboy

Originally organised for a loop around Eastridge and Stiperstones the annual Christmas forum ride was re-organised for a Cannock outing due to the weather conditions and access to the Eastridge carpark. The thaw had started to set in but snow had just melted and re-frozen over the ice creating polished ice rink like conditions! JM bailed immediately having ridden up from Cannock and experiencing the treacherous conditions. The rest of us, foolishly it could be said, set off.

Careful going on the ice

The plan was to try and keep to the singletrack (err, isn’t that what we do anyway?!) but with the icy trails it is just increasingly apparent how much forest road you need to ride to link the singletrack together. We gradually started to gain the miles, trying to avoid the obvious ice but by doing so we’d be ridding through the energy zapping snow. Ridding a variation of the previous ride’s proven route we eventually ended up at the stepping stones, but as I approached Kev was just picking himself out of the icy water! He had tripped up on a chunk of ice as he crossed the open water. A couple of us bottled the crossing (which was probably a bad idea – cleats on ice is not a clever idea!), the more veteran riders amongst us just rode straight across without it fazing them!

Not wanting to tempt fate with any more icy trails than we needed we decided to ride up The Bitch, straight up through Brocton Copice. This actually proved to have more grip than usual! At the top Potter* voiced his keenness to ride Mick’s Tree, the group obviously didn’t want to disappoint so with a chorus of screeching brakes we droped down the flowing singletrack towards Mick’s tree. Dog Ears cleared half the drop only being stopped be a loose branch getting lodged in his rear wheel, following directly behind I had to stop too – the alternative route to avoid Dog Ears wouldn’t have ended happily! I quickly had to get out the way as Sticky was barrelling down, looking like he was going to make it but then he slipped into the line that I had decided to avoid and over he went! Back at the top Jas had a moment ending up with his bike crossing the trail, from then on it was just carnage with only one or two of us clearing the trail.

Carnage on Mick's Tree

Recovered from the carnage we moved off taking the main track out of the valley towards Pepper Slade. To finish the ride rode Marmite and then looped back up Nagery and over to JM’s. At the bottom of JM’s we had an audience as the group minced out of the final drop, finishing with Dog Ears clearing it but almost taking out three of the group in the process. One final lung-busting climb up to Marquis Drive and we were back for a long awaited coffee – and the biggest slice of chocolate devil cake of the year which is clearly why the MD cafe is our favourite!

MD Cafe's Devils Chocolate cake

*Potter was actually very vocal that it was the one trail he didn’t want to ride!

Met Kris (Space Cowboy) at a cold and desolate Cannock Chase the Tuesday before Christmas. I was apprehensive, not about the ride but about getting there and getting stuck as 14” of snow had been dumped on Redditch in 3 days and it took 15 minutes to do the first 100 yards out of my flat road. Needn’t have worried as though the chase was covered you could still see the blades of grass on the recreation ground at Marquis Drive, an amazing contrast in conditions in 30 miles!

Got layered up (it was -4C) and off loaded the bikes, co-incidentally Kris was also large Inbred 29er mounted, though in SS mode and gay purple. His ratio of 32:20 was the same as mine so being a copy-cat-keef (wmmtb in joke) I selected gear 5, which is 1:1 on the 8 speed Alfine and we headed out.

So what of the Alfine? First of all it feels different and it’s difficult to pinpoint. The drive feels more solid, more direct, there’s no mechanical clatter, it’s something that single speeders spout on about and after having a go on zxal’s SS Kona a few weeks back dare I say my bike has that SS feel to it.

I must have been in a sort of single speed mindset too as for the first 15 minutes of our ride I didn’t change ratios and I was starting to think I’d wasted my money, I’m pretty sure that with the old SLX set up there would have been much mechanical clatter as I searched for a comfortable cadence.

Anyway, that all changed when we hit that little climb in Alex’s and I grabbed a lower gear, trouble is 8 speed Alfine shifts in reverse to convention, you pull to go lower, needless to say I ground to a halt. Now a good thing about Alfine is that you can shift gear whilst stationary, with no need to get off and spin the cranks to get the chain to switch over, so just clicked the lever back twice and away. As soon as I was over this little blip, I remembered my new saying “press to go faster” and clicked up into 5th and SS mode. As the ride wore on, the still limited capacity of my post “man-flu” lungs necessitated that 4th became the norm with the odd excursion into 3rd and 2nd. Gear changing is quick and silent though you do need a split-second easing of pedal pressure in order to complete a shift.

I was a little concerned that the rear wheel would slip in the drop out as I wasn’t running a chain tug. I’d cranked the axle bolts up 1970’s tracker style but I still kept looking down to see if the wheel was out of centre, a pointless exercise as unlike the 70’s, and 80’s and 90’s for that matter, any slippage would be immediately apparent with a binding rear disc brake. Despite lots of 97kg mashing of the cranks nothing moved.

When we were on fast flat and downhill trails I was able to venture beyond 5th gear. Kris’s legs would be a blur of spin I just clicked up to maintain comfortable momentum. Again there was a strange silence from the drive train as I’ve become accustomed to the rear mech and chain slapper of conventional gearing whilst travelling at speed over bumps.

I never noticed any rearward weight bias though I think the chase conditions meant we were being a little more cautious than usual but all in all a good ride and I’m glad to say the Alfine hub lived up to expectation.

You can wake up now!