I had a couple of hours on the bike last night, up to Birtle and back again. Last night was the first time I’d ever ridden a “standard”, DN6 steel, made for a not-mental fork, On One Inbred – quite surprising really (although not surprising when you consider I’ve never actually owned one, I just know loads of people that do). Budge had been having some problems getting his rear mech tickety-boo so I decided that I’d ride it and hopefully sort it while I was out.

I thought it was great. Despite the over-damped fork and narrow bars the bike rides just like the way folk say they do. Towards the end of the ride I ended up wanting one. Oh dear.

Oh, the chain was too long.

I made a start on the risk assessment document for the next Hit the North race yesterday. Despite my experiences with the RA for the last race, I naively thought that this one would take a couple of hours.Obviously I was wrong. It’s shorter course though so I’ve done about half of it, including the (on reflection) really rather risk-laden bit where there’s a narrow trail that follows the countour of a hill – you’ve got the hill on one side of the trail and a 20 foot drop on the other. We’ll just load it up with marshalls or something. Perhaps a mandatory dismount, but then that would be shit.

I had an early morning long ride today, the first one for ages really. It was wet, cold and windy but ace. I did my “usual” route on the ‘cross bike from the house to the Peaks via Oldham and Glossop, finishing at my brother-in-law’s place for a bacon barm. There were loads of cyclists out this morning, including one friendly “good morning” group that I dropped on the big climb out of Stalybrige. Perhaps they weren’t really trying though. I had intended to extend the ride by including a run up and ride down Lantern Pike but decided not to in the end. I should have ridden the road bike instead.

I took Michael up to Ramsbottom the other night for a night ride. I’d planned a easyish route over Holcombe Moor, down Robin Hood’s to Irwell Vale, Edenfield then along a trail I’ve not ridden for years. Dead rocky it is. “He’ll love this” I thought. It was much more severe than I remember, in fact the trail that was already pretty technical, bears all the scars of 2 years of pretty much constant rain. At the bottom we had to stop while Mike put his chain back on. The only problem was that his mech was hanging off…he’d smashed it on a rock. I set about removing it, shortening the chain and bodging a singlespeed setup. It’s about time he was riding a singlespeed anyway, now that he’s old enough to grow a scraggy beard 😉

Anyway, that was fine, if a little bit spinny until we got to Nutall Wood. For some reason (probably poor maintenance), three of the four chainring bolts decide to disintegrate so he’s now got chainrings that move in an elliptical orbit around the bottom bracket.

We walked the last mile (up the Rake) to the car.

Yesterday was Eleanor’s first birthday. I ate too much pizza, too much cake and drank too much red wine. Loads of our friends and family came round so it was a really good day.

The birthday girl enjoyed it too!

 I’ve “disposed” of 2 more bikes in the last week. Stripped but not-yet-sold is the Patriot. And sold but not-yet-stripped is the Prince Albert. I’m really sad to see them go but they’ve not been ridden often enough and the PA is pretty bloody heavy anyway. I’ve kept the forks, wheels and all other components…so there may be some options in the New Year. Given the sorry state of Mike’s DMR and the fact that he’s all of a sudden the same height as me, it’s probable that we’ll share a bike (ok, I’ll build something for him and nick it occasionally). At least then I might pay more attention to maintaining the thing.

I’ve been digging out and dusting off the soft shell jacket, the windproof jacket, the fleece skull cap, the waterproof Goretex gloves and the overshoes. It’s cold now, not quite cold enough for the winter boots yet but it’s going to snow this week so perhaps I should empty the dead spiders out of those too. I actually got numb fingers and toes when I went for a ride yesterday. I’d almost forgot how painful that can be.

I managed to fit in a fair bit of riding last week and I’ve got a good plan this week too. Today’s ride started this afternoon after I’d been stuck in the house all day and the weather was looking pretty good, chilly and blue skies – perfect. No sooner had I clipped into the pedals though and the heavens opened and I was soaked by the time I’d got to the end of our road. Bah. I carried on as I really wanted to ride a “new” trail again that I’d found last week. Unusually for round here, it’s quite twisty, very rocky (well, not “rocky” as such, more like large chunks of an old stone building that got bombed by the Luftwaffe or something. Perhaps) and a stark contrast to the regular mud and trees stuff. It’s ace but for now it’s a secret.

It definitely felt wintery last night, which came as a shock after the mild temperatures recently. I’ve still been stuck in the “short rides” rut again last week – I’ve been doing 10 mile loops on the singlespeed whilst being rained on, mostly. I’m easing myself back into it I suppose. This week I’ll get out on the road bike and get the base miles in like I should be doing.

More Three Peaks Cyclocross media…

Simon’s 3 Peaks video is done. You can see it here. The movie features the cream of the UK cyclocross talent; Rob Jebb, Nick Craig…me 😉

There’s also a nice slideshow by Geoff Waugh here

We’ve finally donated the “profits” of Hit the North to charity. We’ve given £1000 to Mediquip4Kids and £420 each to a local preservation charity and a local bat protection group. We did the cardboard cheque/local paper/daft charity mascot thing the other day in the park. Unfortunately the journo didn’t show up but Warren was there to save the day with his camera…

I even got to play with the mascot’s head for a bit 😉