I went over to Darwen last night for a ride with Simon and John. I’d not seen either of them for yonks so it seemed like a good idea to catch up and take full advantage of my recent acquisition of a car! John was late again so Simon and I pissed about for a bit with an Ipod. Itunes – that’s got to be the least intuitive interface ever. Or maybe I’m just getting older. Whatever, it didn’t beat me, but it came close. So we rode for a couple of hours up and down some big fog-covered hills. God knows where we went. There was only one scary moment when my chain somehow slipped off the freewheel and as anyone who’s ridden a singlespeed up a steep hill will tell you, this is really not good and normally results in a knackers/stem interface situation. I got away with it this time but I’ll need to check that chainline again. It was probably a bit of chain stretch though making the bugger go slack. More puffing and panting and thrutchy manouvres and out of the saddle honking followed as we continued on this rollercoaster of a route until we’d gone full circle from A to A. The best thing about singlespeeding (and there’s a lot of good things about it) is the way any ride with any kind of incline or “bumpy bits” is a challenge. With gears you can click it down a few cogs and sit down. On a SS you’ve got to stand up, use far more energy and brute strength and shift your weight appropriately to maintain traction. I’m loving it more and more every time I ride this thing and speaking purely from a training angle, it’s making me a fitter rider. And that can only be a good thing. And now I’ve got a lovely White Industries freewheel with seals and everything. No more shagged freewheels after one wet ride for me!