I am happy !

Updated DMR

Finally got the DMR all ready for the race yesteday.

The front mechanical disk installed and the cranks on and running.


















The seat is not at a weird angle - honest...






















Really need a new BB as it is making some awful noises.

Afternoon off work ride

Our illustrious team leader of the single speed team for the 12 hour event this weekend has come up to Auckland early and I volunteered to take the afternoon off work and show him the pleasures of Woodhill mountain bike park.

The weather was not bad for a ride, little bit cloudy and a little bit cool, but certainly a good winter’s afternoon. The park was pretty empty as you would expect mid-week, though the event organisers were there taping up the course.

We started riding up the road towards the trail block but saw that the event trail was being marked out next to the road so jumped the fence and started up the hill, the climb was not bad and well suited for a single speed, gentle climbs for a 100 meters then flatting out and then climbing again, climb was probably a km all up, with over half of it on single track, some on the new trail we had been digging – with some nice rooty bits to keep it honest – though it was an all skill level event. At the top of the hill we had to guess which way the trail went (and I think we guessed wrong) and we headed down the spaghetti trail, this was a great section for racing as it is quite flowy, some nice turns, some rooty corners but plenty of room for passing. About ¾ of the way through Spag stage 1 there was a newly dug and very narrow descent back which aimed back to the carpark, we shot down there to the bottom and then cut into the end of Charlies Angels and pushed up the hill back to Spag and off the event course. Had a flier down SPCA , so much fun and then took the road up to and I showed my guest Northern Exposure and my trail, then down Python, end of Haggis, Enchanted Forest the wrong way, up Link to Cookie. The Cookie trail was marked off for the event which was really pleasing as it is hard packed fairly fast trail with a couple of small jumps, plenty of passing room and I can do it in my sleep at reasonable pace. We picked up another SSer who I had never met before, who was young and fast, so we chatted to him for a while and he followed us back down Raceface Down to the carpark.

Nice ride, good last minute preparation for the race on Saturday. The bike rode well with its new cranks and brakes. Few minor adjustments to the rear brake, a re-tighten off the cranks and she will be ready for the race.

I would so much rather be riding than working.

New old cranks

Well the cranks arrived at work today so I had them on the bike about 15 minutes after I got home, got the XC SPD’s screwed in, ripped open the little chain bit I bought to replace the quick links I lost and bugger it - the guy in the shop gave me a link that was too small. I told him it was for a SS chain… so no test ride tonight.

But I did pump the shocks, pump the tyres, adjust the hand grips and brake levers so it was not a complete dead loss.

Race in 3 days…

Loaded the old 256mb MP3 player with 256mb of punk rock…

Yay for Vorb

Just secured some second hand cranks off a fellow Vorbii for an extremely good price, event better he is going to courier them to me today and I will pay him at the weekend when he is up for the Woodhill 12 hour event.

I love Vorb ! and its network of extremly cool mountain bikers.

Bugger bugger bugger !

In preparation for the team 12 hour event I am doing next Saturday I pulled the SS to bits and gave her a good old clean. I haven’t even had the rear wheel off since the race in May, and cleaning has been more of a wave the hose over the worst of the dirt since then as well.

As well as cleaning and lubing the bike I intended on swapping the platform SPD pedals for the XC spuds, as well fitting the front disk brakes with new pads and putting new cleats on the Nike shoes.

So yesterday afternoon I took the wheels, pedals and chain off and gave her a good clean. gentle brush, rag, toothbrush for the nooks and crannies. She was looking pretty clean by the end of it.

Today after everything had dried off I started to reassemble, first the chain, wiped it down after it had dried off and found I must have dropped the quick lines into the soapy water bowl with the chain. Sadly I threw the dirty water into the weed patch behind the shed yesterday afternoon, quick links – long gone…. OK, I thought, not a biggie I can pick up some more Monday, I will just get the chain back on and carry on assembling and getting things ready.

Next up pedals. Hmmmmm next issue – the crank was pretty old and had already been stripped once and had an insert put in, this was also pretty much wrecked and I could not get the pedal in… Shit. OK, I will swap the cranks from the Cindercone, rang a friend and drove round to get his crank puller. Pulled the square splined crank from the SS and then found the Cindercone had a isis crank. Shit shit shit. Time for a new plan…

Well I go the brake pads changed successfully anyway…

Now I need to find cranks or arrange to swap the BB and cranks between bikes by Thursday when I go riding before the race on Saturday.

I should have stayed in bed.

Saturday morning Woodhill ride

Had a good ride today, went out with my normal riding buddy for a SS thrash at Woodhill.

It was very cool this morning, around 3 degrees, but it was another crystal clear day so riding was going to be good.

We road up the new PowerBall trail to Spaghetti along Spag to SPCA. SPCA was riding so nicely, 1 or so Km’s of gentle downhill a fun fun ride. Wicked.

We pushed up the hill from the end of SPCA through the old car park and then up Upland, I struggled a bit on the climb which was unusual, shot down Lightening and Enchanted Forest to the Haggis. We were riding at a cracking pace and by the time we were halfway up Haggis I was really sucking air, definitely not as good as last weeks ride. This week we rode all of Haggis and did not cut out to Conifer loop and up to my trail. I so rarely do the full Haggis loop which is a shame as it is a neat trail and the back section that we miss is 1 of the older sections of track in the park. After Haggis we rode Slipperies delight and the climb at the end, even though it is not big damn near killed me, really was feeling the ride this week. Tree Huggers was next and then up the Link where my riding buddy slayed me on the climb and left me a wheezing struggling mess by the top, I killed him last week so it was definitely his turn. We then rode the side of Cookie and down into the new section of trail back to the carpark as I wanted to bed the trail into my head before the race next weekend as the new trails are supposed to be in it.

Not a bad ride, definitely not as good as last week though.

I did ride with the HRM and hit 100% at times, sustained 101 going up Upland, so will definitely adjust that a bit. Set max heart rate from 179 to 187 and see if I go over that at 100%

Spinning

Still spinning, had 2 more sessions on the bike this week. Monday night for about 30 monutes before I was interupted by a visitor and then last night I got a good 45 minutes in at a decent pace.

Hope to get back on the bike again tonight and give it a good nudge, just had a massive lunch with the old work crew so need to get ride of those fries. Then a gentle spin Friday night before Saturday mornings ride.

Sadly my bro-in-law wants the trainer back after the race next weekend so that is a bit of a bummer -gues I could buy my own ?

Hope to put the disk brakes on the DMR tonight as well, that will be the first job I do when I get home.

Tuesday night in Area 51

I had a really good ride last night. I hooked up with some people from the Freeride’n store and hit some ‘illegal’ trails up at Area 51. I do not normally condone illegal trail riding, but in this case most of these trails are in a publicly accessible forest, and there used to bike trails all through this section of the forest, untill things all got a bit commercial – enough said trying to justify myself, I really shouldn’t have been riding there anyway, but I did and I probably will again.

There was 7 of us riding, 3 groms and 4 adults. I took the SS though I wasn’t sure what the climbing would be like and from experience of riding there in the past when it was allowed I did expect to have to walk some sections.

We met at 6.30 PM at the home of one of the rider leader and then pedalled for a KM or so up the road to a downhill walking track. The track was fun, though I am always a bit nervous riding downhill trail for the first time in the dark, especially when it is A) designed for walkers and may have steps and B) I suspected it was close to the edge of a cliff. It was a nice wide trail and pretty tame, be a lot more fun next time. At the bottom of the track we rode some more sealed road the hill to the gannet colony track. I haven’t been there for a while and was surprised that after a 100 meters of gentle climb to the top the track had been stepped all the way back down to the bottom car park. The steps were in sets of 4 with about 4 metres of flat between them, there was probably 10 sets of steps down which was the longest run of steps I have done, enjoyed it, though I will say I was a bit worried about blowing the rear tube as I was running very low pressures from riding in the sand and was not expecting to be riding more wooden framed steps.

After the steps we rode back up the road and into the forest itself, having a bit of local knowledge certainly helped as I have always gone in from the bottom road which has meant a steep climb/push to the top, but we snuck around the easy gradient sealed road and in the back way almost at the top. There has been an awful lot of trail work in this end of the forest, seeing as we are not supposed to be riding there a lot of effort had gone into developing some gnarly short downhill tracks with some quite carefully constructed jumps, including road gaps. We did not do anything that serious and soon dropped back to sea level and rode some very vague tight twisting shingle track back to the beach road and then back to the cars.

All up it was a 2 hour ride, damn good fun as all rides are, cool to ride with some different people and some different trails and not take any of it too seriously. I will definitely be back for some Tuesday night rides.

Listening to some old "shoegazer" bands - Chapterhouse and My bloody valentine today.

hmmm - 107% of max Heart Rate

A stunning late winter day today. Crystal clear blue skies, gentle but cool breeze, so I stayed in bed till 9.30 then went round to briefly visit my parents before they went on their 5 week trip to the UK.

I picked up the DMR from the bike shop after having the BB re-greased, the mechanic says the BB is just about totally shot – it is 6 years old so fair enough, but I want it to last a few more weeks until I can get the cash to buy another one. This week I am buying some almost new Shimano pedals and cleats from a fellow Vorber so need the cash.

Started installing the front mechanical disk brake but found the outer cable I had was not long enough so used what I had and got the rim brakes running sweetly for this weeks riding and will have another go at the weekend.

Went for a run up Exhibition drive. My plan was to do a fast lap then a slow lap. At the halfway point on the first lap I was hitting a reasonable pace and then realised had not set my damn watch, I tried keeping up the pace on the way back, but had really lost the motivation to push for a record time. So basically gave up, dropped the pace to slow and jogged back.

About 1km from the car I put on a good burst to see how far I could push the heart rate over 100% got up to 107 at 189 bpm. I will change the HRM to reflect the higher heart rate as I do worry that even on an average run I spend too much time over 85% of max.

Mechanical disk brakes.

I have been thinking about buying some second hand mechanical disk brakes for the DMR for quite a while and have been keeping a casual eye on a couple of forums and the trademe web site.

Finally someone on Vorb posted their old Shimano mech. disks for sale and I leapt in and accepted his price of $50. To make this the coolest thing the seller said he would gift them to me for all the work I have been doing track building.

In return I gave the $50 to Vorb and became a foundation member.

We were all winners.

Here are the brakes, I went to put them on the DMR today but the outer cable I had lying around was too short, will get some fresh cable tomorrow and have a crack tomorrow night.

A good ride

Had a pretty good ride at Woodhill today. Rode with a friend who was on his fairly new GT single speed, and on his second ride after knee problems. The weather was not too bad, cloudy and cool but no rain.

Unusually we rode up the road to the start of the Big Mama track and then dropped in for the first half of Big Mama. I was riding Ok, we rode up the Big Mama hill and I was feeling pretty good at the top which was way better than last time I rode it. Sadly the top 2 jumps, which I have always felt comfortable doing, have been changed.

Historically Woodhill has had most of the smaller, and even some of the bigger jumps, with flat landings, bad design in an era of ignorance. But they have been like that for an awful long time and while some don’t like them I was used to them and it meant that I could hit them at a speed that suited me, slowly ! Now they have been rebuilt with wooden framed landings and I am sure if I hit them I would case the landing and trash my rear wheel. Which means I do not jump much any more as there are not too many jumps that do not have newly built landings. This pisses me off a bit as I did enjoy doing the jumps I did in the way I did them… oh well, back to the ride.

We dropped down the last section of Spaghetti to the old car park and then did more road work up to the start of Haggis. I had a great ride up Haggis, I really hit the groove on that track, first time I have ridden the whole first section fully seated, I do believe that some of the trainer work and the session at Rotorua has built a bit of grinding strength. We then did Northern Exposure and then hit my trail again. The new section is bedding in well though there was one bend that just does not flow for me, I have gone over the side both times I have ridden it, so I will take a spade up and widen and berm it. We the rode down Ironhorse which I have not done in its entirety for ages and then back up Anaconda, felt good on that trail as well which was a first.

Back up the side of Conifer and Haggis then up the combo trail which was a bit of a grind and then down through the new trail which has bedded in well. This section of trail is in the race in 2 weeks so I will ride it again next week and get the layout firmly bedded in my mind.

All up a really good ride, things glowed well though my rear brakes need a serious adjustment and the BB was squeaking like mad. I dropped the bike in to the LBS and they said they would do re-grease and pack the BB ready for me to pick up tomorrow.

Woot woot - The Buzzcocks are coming to town

Just read in the paper today - The Buzzcocks are playing a gig on September 10th at the Saint James Theatre in Auckland.

I am very excited. My favourite band of all time, though I have never seen them, they played in Auckland once in the 90s but I was out of time on a family holiday and couldn't go.

Yes they are old, and yes they have released a new album that is probably awful, though I will purchase it, but they will play old stuff.

Yahoooooooo

Spin spin spin

Had 2 good rides on the trainer this week.

Wednesday night I did a good hour long session, worked up a massive sweat even though the tempreture was below 10 degrees. good mix of spin and digging it in.

Spent the hour listening to Dead Kennedys "Fresh fruit for rotting vegetables" LP followed by some Clutch as that was the next CD in the stacker.

Thursday night I did a 40 minute light spin, watched an episode of Prison Break to keep me amused. So far I have not been bored on the spinner ! Will aim for a 2 hour session one night next week.

The 12 hour race is 2 weekends away. team of SSer's - I am looking forward to to it.

Listening to the Buzzcocks - Singles going steady

Today's run

Had a quick road run this afternoon. 10km 56 minutes.

Did the Titirangi Rd loop, not the best time, but I felt very flat for most of the run and there was quite a strong head wind up Titirangi Rd. Still it was nice to run again and to follow up yesterdays ride with a run.

World cup final tomorrow morning so up early. England did not make it again, out on penalties as usual...

Listening to Built to Spill after a good write up in the paper.

Rotorua Sifty Single Speed ride.

Photos to come - for some reason I cannot post them.

Another Vaguely Organised Ride (Vorb.org.nz) for single speeders on the wonderful Rotorua single track. 10 riders from 4 towns said they would attend, but there is always more enthusiasm than reality on Vorb rides.

I wasn’t sure if I would make this ride either after being a bit down with a head cold earlier in the week. The weather forecast had not been that hot either and riders were starting to make noises about not going. My wife decided to come down wit the youngest and 1 of his friends and enjoy some of the other many pleasures of this wonderful adventure tourism town.

Saturday morning we work up at 7.00, 30 minutes late, and quickly piled into the car and took off 22 minutes later than planned. Stopped for breakie at the traditional MacDonalds stop, though I just filled the car with gas and didn’t even get my morning coffee. We were still running about 20 minutes late so but I wasn’t really driving too fast, tried to keep the speed between 100 and 110 km’s (speed limit is 100, but they ‘allow’ up to 110). But as always happens when my wife comes away on biking trips I got stopped for speeding, first time in 5 years. Damn $80 fine for 113km and another 10 minute delay. Stopped for a takeway coffee at Fizgerald Glade and rang the boys, I wasn’t the only one not there ! the Hamilton boys were late as usual. Finally got there 35 minutes late, Unloaded my stuff from the car and the wife and kids left me to it.

Amazingly almost everyone turned up. We had 8 singles speeders and 2 geared bikes. I have never seen 8 single speeders together ever. Awesome !

We rode the road as a warm up, of course there was a bit of racing going up the short climbs, but in theory it was a warm up…


The first trail we rode was A Trail, nice flowy single track – as is all of Rotorua, then the Tickler were we stopped for a munch and a photo before 7 of us took off for the ride up Hill Rd to the Rollercoaster, then Spring roll and Chop suey – or vice versa, not sure of all the names up there. I rode most of it, walked one small section, not realising the trail ended a few metres round the corner. The ‘back’ trails are just so wonderful, even after all the rain the conditions were generally firm underneath, with the soft section. We picked up the 2 geared bikes and the other single speeder at the start of Be rude not too (one of the best tracks in the forest), though the tank was starting to run low as always when we hit this trail. We ended up with a sore tired ‘sprint’ of the Diamondback trail, which is a fairly flat, almost rock hard trail with some nice big berms and natural(ish) drops and jumps. At the mid way point on the trail there is a gully that drops fairly steeply, and rises the same, we were catching our breath there when we heard the slide of brakes, a moments silence, the thump of a body hitting the ground and an ‘oooo’ from those who could see. We all rushed over to help/observe and saw and older guy in the mud on the ground. He was ok, (maybe bruised ribs) fortunately, lost the front wheel while riding the brakes down the gully. His mate had filmed it fortunately for us, and man it was a stylish over the bars dive !

Finished off the ride, and then met for a pre-ride scoff at Burger King before driving home.

Awesome ride, good company, wicked trails, no mechanicals and only one person fell off – getting on his bike at the end of the road climb…

Link to the ride post is here. http://www.vorb.org.nz/ftopicp-892978.html#892978


Listening to the Velvet Underground this morning, it has been a while and I am very much enjoying it.

Rip it up and start again

As the new car does not have a cd player and the radio has not been converted from Japanese frequencies to New Zealand so I only can pick up 3 (awful) stations, I have been listening to a lot of cassettes lately.

I have about 100 old cassettes stored out in the sleep out, some of these are just awful, some do not work but some are just fantastic. Most of these were either purchased or recorded in the early 80’s, though there are a few from the late 90’s before I had a car cd player. It is the late 70’s and 80’s stuff I have had the most pleasure listening to, old Wire, Joy Division and New Order, Killing Joke and obscure New Zealand bands. This has also inspired me to go back to my vinyl collection to record some mix tapes, especially the 45’s which I tend not to play when I do throw vinyl on the stereo. It has been a great musical re-education, there was so much good music happening back then, and a lot of it was so fresh.

I have been off sick from work for the past couple of days with a head cold that laid me down on Monday afternoon. Tuesday I had to go down to the local library to get some reading material and found a new book called “Rip it up and start again – Post punk 1978 – 1984”, it is quite a weighty tome, coming in at over 550 pages. A lot of it is full of twaddle with the author showing off lots of big words and name dropping all sorts of artists/activists etc etc, but it is a very interesting history of that immediate post punk period when I was a teenager. It also arrived at the time I have been listening to music from that period again. A recommended read.

So today I am listening to a whole range of fairly obscure artists from 78-84 – Swell maps, Throbbing gristle, Cabaret Voltaire etc etc

Sick

Been sick the last few days, no work, no ride, no run.

stupid head cold.

Have been reading books.

A great Woodhill ride

The last week has had some stunning winter weather, crisp and cool with cloudless skies and no wind – it was also the officially coldest June in since 1972. The forecast for the coming week is not so hot unfortunately with rain supposed to settle in this afternoon, luckily my head cold chose this week to start so I am not going to miss out on too many crystal clear nights.

Had a most awesome ride on Saturday – for a change I rode with 2 other single speeders and no geared bikes. We all had different gear ratios, levels of fitness and abilities though when everything was all added together we were reasonably compatible and I think everyone felt as broken as me at the end of the ride. I had ridden with 1 of the riders before as we are both Vorbii but the second guy was a complete stranger to both of us, but we all got on well which was good.

We rode up Powerball, down Spaghetti to Afterglow, Afterglow, then up the road to Northern Exposure then onto my trail – No Brakes. Someone had changed the entrance to the new extension on the track, using a couple of small logs they had blocked off the existing trail forcing people to ride the extension - I wasn’t complaining as the track needed wheels on it to bed it in, I hadn’t even run my own wheels over it since I had completed the grooming. The track rode well; only one corner that felt like it needed changing so I will wait a few more weeks and then re-evaluate it.

After that we rode Python, Anaconda and back along the fence line to the top of Cookie then back down the new part of the Raceface trail that I helped dig a couple of weeks back. That trail has had a lot of bikes over it and is really well packed in – rides quite nicely. Not sure how many KM’s we did, but all up we were out for close to 3 hours and we were not riding particularly slowly either.

One of the great things about this ride is I spent a bit of time following the new rider, who has been riding single speed bikes for quite a few years. He rode his bike exactly how you read it the magazines so I tried to emulate him, follow his lines and body positions as we rode the tracks. I think I learned something !

Listening to Film School today – never heard of them before – quite like it so far.