Endura kit arrived :D , sids and Ritchey WCS

just got some Endura Stealth equipment for winter training and the puffer

1 stealth jacket
1 stealth extreme bib longs
1 stealth lite bib long
1 pair of deluge gloves

wore them home through the torrential rain and rode through loads of puddles

dry as a bone the stuff really is a work of art - didnt sweat up and wet out from the inside from sweat.

Although the endura Extremes did feel "warm" and would strictly be cold day only kit the jacket with a base layer under was perfect and didnt feel too warm in the slightest even with the vents all shut.


Also got my sids back from warrenty - the lowers were twisted after relentless - common fault apparently. Fisher spotted a leaky motion control so changed it out for a world cup blackbox damper (to replace my basic race motion control) and put on new sid team lowers.

and courtesy of the STW classifieds i have a seat post with 25mm layback to make my Merida fit correctly as the thomson post was "inline" and set me too far over the pedal.

Gary fisher Rig has returned .....

Grampian police did a sterling job and i was without my Gary Fisher rig for only a week

unfortunantly the asshat has done some vandalism :(

It had Ergon grips on and they just hacksawed off the "ergon" part and glued them to the bars removing the bar ends :@

They replaced the EA70 seat pin and Specialized seat with a fat hybrid saddle and suspension seat post.

They repaired the rear puncture and put the wheel in pretty much all wrong and didnt tighten it !

But at least i have it back !

Looking good ! Relentless

Been pretty quiet on the bike front for a wee bit , letting my self have some time off and head recovery for my winters plans. Since ive moved to Aberdeen ive been doing a 3 mile each way commute and ive done 2 , 90k rides.

Sat in the flat playing fastest finger first on the laptop to see who gets a strathpuffer 2010 entry.

I got lucky

So based on that i quickly got in touch with frazer at Nofuss events and sorted out an entry to Relentless 24.

We left on Friday night and headed over the lecht to the grey corries lodge at roy bridge for a good nights sleep before the race. In bed at 10pm a first for me i think. Up at 8 and at the race by 9. Signed on , pit set up , speak to a few friends and line up for the lemonds start.

Off we went. New tactics for me - real food , fruit juice and taking it easy. No point in racing wont last not done enough milage!


[photo by oliver coats of www.olivercoats.co.uk]

Rode with josh ibbett for 3 laps till i had to stop for some real food , then with Dave Buchanan again till food , then Twinklydave till i stopped again. All of us working the same policy of riding easy till 3/4am rather than racing hard, training ride all round.

All went well , my new USE exposure Maxx D and Joystick were infailible and gave out so much light it was a revelation over riding with my old dinottes.

From Drop Box

Got caught out in my quest for 3rd place and got caught in heavy rain and bitterly cold winds on my last 2 laps wearing a non waterproof softshell which soaked me to the skin and my body just shut down. Ended the morning at 6am sat in the cafe wearing 3 warm jackets with a blanket round me right next to the fire shivering for an hour eating food till my body let me regain control!

Stopping didnt hurt my result that much, dropped from 4th to 6th as the top 4 (josh , dave , dave and me) were that far ahead of the rest.

Happy with that for a training ride ! Bring on the puffer (new waterproof that breaths i think for that one)

Stolen GARY FISHER RIG aberdeen !

From Drop Box

IF anyone trys to sell this to you or you see it ride by - rattle some sense into them please or tell me where you saw them !

They also stole an Angus bike chain Windtex top , Endura superlite Gilet and a pair of arm warmers (my only pair without a hole :( )

Scum !

Quiet but lots happening

Not updated much as not much of note has happened except the following

• Jayne Crashed at 10 more @Moray and knocked her self out
  
• I crashed at Moray more @ Moray and trashed my shoulder
  
• I learned to ride the unicycle on grass
• I got a new job
  
• I am in the process of moving to Aberdeen
• I finish at Angus Bike Chain tomorrow(Saturday)

ng she had no idea what she was doing or where she was ! Stopped at the next medics wagon and a blue light taxi down the hill


I should probably elaborate on the some of those points:

Jayne hit a jump a bit to confidently (which is a great thing) but miss judged her speed and body position and it threw her over the handle bars. Splitting her helmet front to back and knocking her out for a few seconds. She got up quickly and rode on before realizing she had no idea what she was doing or where she was ! Stopped at the next medics wagon and a blue light taxi down the hill

Since our race was over i decided to try to ride the unicycle that was floating round our pits - within a couple of hours i was zooming up and down the field we were pitched in.

On monday i got a call from John Fraser @ Alpine Bikes Aberdeen making an offer of employment so as of Monday next week i am an Alpine Bikes Mechanic.

I have a flat in Aberdeen now - 2 miles from kirkhill right on the edge of town near Dyce.

Pitlochry 200k

So take 1 x 210k audax add 1 25k ride to get there add in fixed wheel and a pannier and 1 unbroken in brooks saddle and what do you get ?

I dunno.

Today was fun actually not sure why but it was. Legs dont hurt as much as they should for some reason probably due to the lactic acid getting thrown to the far corners of the universe as my legs rotate at 173rpm.

Arbroath to forfar-pitlochry - tummel bridge - kinloch rannock - tummel bridge - queensview - pitlochry -over moulin moor - kirkmicheal -down glen isla and home as shown in the map.

From Drop Box

The bike in question although it had a pannier on it for today !

Brooks saddle - although no broken in it got noticably softer today (ive only done 250k previously on it and took a risk with today) but its the first time ive covered this distance on anything other than my ochterergonomo (tm) saddle and not had sores or numbness. A huge thumbs up from me , all the old geezers at these audaxs aint just buying into folklore they actually work !

Few stats from the day

• 8.3 million inches were cycled during the audax or 210k
  
• Average cadence of 70RPM
  
• Average speed of 25kph
  
• Max cadence of 173rpm at 61.5KPH
  
• Min cadence of 8rpm at 3.5 KPH (think trackstand with slight forward motion and lots of body english)

Map below

Dundee Thistle 25TT

Well since the start of the year Euans been challenging me to go for a sub hour on a 25TT.

The Dundee thistle TT on a road i know is an ideal road for having a crack. Glamis Junction to Coupar angus , round the roundabout and back as fast as you can.No tactics no nothing.

Got Jamies Merida Scultura EVO907 AGAIN , fitted my tribars AGAIN and pedaled hard again !

Wasnt sure how it would go , got to the roundabout in Coupar Angus at 31mins , meaning i had gone too slow on the outward leg. I didnt feel like i was giving 100% but i wanted to make sure i had gas for the home stretch. As it happened i had a slight tailwind on the way home and sat between 25 and 30mph for the whole distance. Passing several people who had gone out too hard and blown up (evident by the way they had sat up off the tri bars and were twidling little gears to get home).

From Bicycle riding in scotland

[At the turn - photo by James Lyons]
The last climb on the course is hell , i could feel my legs dwindling away and the speedo going down and down to 17mph , then at the top i managed to wind the compact gearing back up to 30mph and held it all the way to the line watching the time on the flightdeck creep ever closer to the hour.

I recorded a 59:35 on the flightdeck but the official time is a 59:27 which im very happy with. Scope to take more off this yet im sure !

From Bicycle riding in scotland

[In Meigle on the return - Photo by "fatdave" of Dundee Thistle]