bikes and things

The previous weekend Vaughan, Matt and myself headed up on a Friday evening to stay in Dolgellau to ride a few trails. None of us had ridden for a while. The drive was pretty arduous on the Friday (well for Vaughan at least – well done sir!) to get to the B+B. So after a decent breakfast and plenty of fettling with the bikes at Coed-Y-Brenin it was out to to ride the Dragon’s Back which is a great 30k route round the forest with about 700m of climbing although fairly evenly spread out. The trail is pretty varied and pretty rocky in places. I managed to rack up 3 punctures in total which was a little testing on all our patience really! Must remember that skinny tyres and a hardtail are not quite as easy to blat through rock fields as the 6″ travel full suss I used to have.

I can never remember the trail names but the section shown below is great. I think it comes after Gomez. You head through loads of switchbacks, rocky and rooty sections and then through a rocky stream into this rocky paved area which twists you down into more sweepy singletrack. Note the use of “rocky”.

Here’s another shot from Matt on Dragon’s Back. Can’t remember where though.

It was an absolutely beautiful day, crisp, clear and bright and actually warm once you got going. Nice riding in shorts and T-shirt again!

I treated myself to a larger rear tyre after we’d finished, hoping to stop the punctures for Sunday. Then it was back to the B+B for a quick shower then out to watch the rugby in Dolgellau. England vs Wales in the local pub! England won so we left fairly sharp for fish and chips then more drinks and then back to the B+B.

Sunday we headed out to Coed Llandegla which is kind of on the way back to the M6. It’s certainly a popular place with the car park rammed by the time we arrived at 11am. Pretty grim weather for it and all feeling it a bit from the day before. Still we got going heading out to the forest. Biting winds and plenty of snow left certainly made a difference to the warm feel of Sat.

We rode the black route again. This time it seemed to flow a lot more and I think I started to get the hang of riding again. Some of the jumpy sections were incredibly good even in the wet.

Here’s a quick group shot taken by Matt.

Anyway, a superb weekend and I think I found myself being interested in riding again. Must head up there again soon.

On my ride home yesterday I was thinking just how nice it was riding my bike during the winter months. the roads are relatively clear and it’s been fairly peaceful on the roads. a few things have really made a difference this year though. The first has been buying some proper winter tights. Having something thicker underneath as well as more material over the knee area has made an enormous difference. The other has been fitting full length mud guards to the fixed. Ok it doesn’t look too cool but it gets me to work relatively dry. So winter commuting isn’t so bad if you have the right kit.

Oh dear. Not sure what ‘marmalise’ means but hilarious to watch anyway.

Bit more uplift on the bars required perhaps.

Had a beautiful but brief ride round the Surrey Hills today. My chest is still pretty rough which kept things short unfortunately. The trails were superb though, crisp, dry and covered in ice. Sketchy in places but lots of fun. The sun shining through the trees was stunning in places. Anyway, finished up with a hot chocolate at the famous Peaslake Stores and home. First time riding clips on the Kobe again which was good. Much more efficient but need to tweak them slightly. Hopefully some more riding coming up soon.

No pictures unfortunately as I was using up roll of HP5 black and white film in the Olympus. Think I got a nice silhouette shot at the top of the hill but will have to see what happens when the film comes back.

Oooh these are rather nice. Just arrived from CRC this morning. Need to set them up with the cleats and get out for some miles in an effort to lose the belly for 2010. Riding in the Surrey Hills tomorrow on the mountain bike.

My good friend Dave has a friend who makes nice saddles out of leather. All completely custom and made to your design! Surely a good way to customise that nice road bike of yours. Prices are pretty reasonable too.

And I quote:
Basically, you can choose the leather and colour and stitch etc and she does the rest. Good way to bring some old or damaged saddle back to life as well.

customsaddles.blogspot.com

Edit: Link added.

Probably one of my nicest rides in to work this morning. Slight chill in the air but dry and the light was perfect. More like this please!

Sometimes I think I’d love to do this. Who cares if it’s wet, at least you’re outside.

The life and hard times of a London bicycle courier | Environment | guardian.co.uk .

This morning Vaughan and I headed down to Brighton to meet Chrissy Boy, Joe and Stu to explore some of the trails down that part of the world. Rather than heading West up to Devil’s Dyke as I’d done before we went East up over the downs and explored a load of trails that way. Such a beautiful day and great to be riding in just a base layer and shorts.

Some great trails were had although there was a lot of climbing involved. Not something that I was prepared for really seeing as it’s been a few months since I rode my mountainbike last. The daily commute doesn’t really seem to prepare you for this. London is relatively flat after all. Also my skills on a bike seemed to have completely disappeared and I chickened out of some tiny drops at the start. Seemed to get it back a bit later though. More practice required!

So after heading out on a fairly sizeable circuit and exploring some of the trails we headed back to Wild Park to have a bit of a play on some of the North Shore. It’s been improved massively since the last time I was there – the weather was also much better too!

A few more photos on Flickr as usual here in slideshow format.

I haven’t been riding for quite some time now. Not sure why, things just seem to have got in the way or a bit of laziness has set in. However this slide show from Dan Barham might be just the inspiration I need to get out on my mountainbike.