Strathpuffer comin' at ya...

So I've just gone and signed up for the Strathpuffer Lite. This is a 12 hour Endurance event held in Contin Woods near the spa town of Strathpeffer. The event is on June 26th/27th 2010 and it starts at 8.00pm and runs through until 8.00am the good thing being that at this time of year, this far north we'll probably only get 2-3 hours of full darkness so the lights won't have to be on for too long!

The only really scary thing is that I've entered it SOLO! This will be the first time I've entered an event like this on my own and I'm already starting to get butterflies about the whole thing. I think I'm going to need to seriously get off my backside and train for this one. 12 hours of riding seems fairly feasible and I suppose I can take as many breaks as I need. I haven't ridden at Contin before and I plan on getting over there in the next week or so for a good ride round and a look at the course.

 

North Sea to the Atlantic - Coast to Coast trip

The other nice little adventure I've had recently, has been the Coast to Coast trip from Ardgay on the East Coast of Scotland to Ullapool on the West Coast. With 30 students and 6 other members of staff from the school where I work, we took a fantastic route almost totally off road and right up through the hills. 


The first day saw us ride up to Croik Church where the church window bears the names of some of the 92 highlanders (18 families) who sheltered here after being driven out of Glen Calvie in the clearances of 1845. The church was built in 1827 to a design by Thomas Telford. After Croik the trail becomes much more mountainous and proved a challenge to some of the youngsters but we were all impressed with the way that every one of them dug in and found the spirit to keep going. 


We then spent the night at a very well appointed Bothy, much to the surprise of the walker who'd just set himself up for a quiet night in front of the fire!


A journey like this really reminds you of the remoteness of the wilderness up her in the North of Scotland and in these days of trail centres riding manicured singletrack and perfectly placed rock gardens it was excellent to really remind myself what mountain biking is all about, namely, riding through great big mountains on a bike that's tough enough to take whatever you can throw at it.

Unfortunately not all of our students bikes were quite tough enough and we did have quite a number of inevitable technical problems from a snapped off rear derailleur (quick conversion to singlespeed) to a front wheel that totally lost one of its locking nuts (fixed on with a piece of kevlar twine!). Unbelievably there were no punctures on any of the bikes throughout the whole journey.  

On the second day it was my turn to have technical difficulties as my bike suddenly decided not to change gear. First up I only had the middle ring and three cogs and then suddenly it dropped down into the granny ring of its own accord and wouldn't budge. The slightest downhill slope suddenly became something of a chore! In the end I decided to sit at the back of the group with the slower students just spinning away in the much too easy gears that I had available.


Really this was one of the most enjoyable times I've had in all the years I've been riding mountain bikes. It's not that often that you get the chance to just go out and ride your bike all day, and not just round some loop, graded red or black. This was real mountain biking with a real aim and a purpose. Somehow that seemed to make it much more exciting and special.

Trail Cycle Leader... that's me!

                                 View from the window...

A couple of weeks ago I had a fantastic time on the Trail Cycle Leader Course (TCL) at Glenmore Lodge down in Aviemore. The two day course led by George McEwan (who was a great teacher) leads to an assessment day that will see me qualified to guide groups of mountain bikers on terrain that is rideable over 90-95% of the total length' in daylight conditions.

                 Our Tutor George with fellow course member Darren


Following this qualification there is a second more complex course that results in the qualification of Mountain Bike Leader (MBL). The course was well structured and well presented, with a good mix of classroom activities and practical riding. Glenmore Lodge is a fantastic facility based at the foot of Cairngorm with some great little trails in its grounds (including some fun north shore) and, of course, hundreds of miles of great mountain trails right on the doorstep. 

                                  Got to practice those track stands....

                                           Nice room!


If you ever get the opportunity to take any of the courses at Glenmore Lodge, I would highly recommend the place. The rooms are excellent (probably the best shower I've ever had in my life), the food is very good indeed and the bar serves fantastic Cairngorm Brewery Ale on tap... What more could you want after a full day in the saddle?

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Glenmore Lodge and also thanks to the Highland Council Outdoor Activities department who fully funded the course for me. I even loved being woken up by ducks at 6.00am ready to go out riding... I can't wait to go back! 

                                                           Noisy Duck!

Such Fun.

Oh I'm just having so much fun at the moment. The weather's been fine and I've been able to get out and ride almost every day. Finding new routes and some lovely technical little trails right on my doorstep has been the best thing about the past week, so I thought I'd include a little vid of the latest fun spots around here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O55zlsX8G4A
I'm getting really excited about going to Glenmore Lodge in just over a week's time to take my Trail Cycle Leader course and I hope to get some really good riding in around Aviemore while I'm over there as well. I'll be writing more about all that after the event. Then, in two weeks time I'm taking a group of 30 teenagers coast to coast from Ardgay to Ullapool which is going top be really fun trip. All in all I'm just having so many opportunities to do really good riding at the moment I've gotta consider myself very lucky indeed.

USE Atom Carbon Riser bar

I've got a pair of these bars for my singlespeed and having had them on the bike for a little while now I guess it's about time for a review...

I've always liked Ultimate Sports Engineering products and I got these bars as a little treat for myself when I finished the conversion of my hardtail over to singlespeed. 

The bars feel really light, at 170g. I know that there are lighter bars out there but I'm not the lightest guy and these feel super strong as well. They are full carbon construction, not bonded, but they do have alloy end pieces and brake area insets to help prevent crushing which is good as I feel happy using lock-on grips with them knowing that I'm not in danger of collapsing the weave.

They're not super wide at 660mm but they're a nice width for me and on a short stem (I've got a 60mm on at the moment) they track really well.

What's great is the way that they seem to soak up vibrations, mine are the 25.4 version and they seem to have this lovely springy feel and yet still feel stiff and precise. I've recently put 1.5 slicks on the bike as I'm using it for commuting duties and even on the road, the vibrations are damped by the carbon leaving me with tingle fee hands.

I guess I might have to consider getting a USE Sumo Carbon seatpost now, just to complete the set...

  

Spring is in the Air...

Sitting here and looking out of the window at the clear blue sky, all I can think about is getting out of work and getting out on the bike. Trails are starting to dry out and we've been able to get out until late every night this week, finding loads of new routes and clearing away some of the winter debris ready for a summer of fantastic rides.

Having planned to do all three of the Ten Under series as well as the Tour de Ben Nevis and Relentless, I've made now made a big decision not to race this year. The costs of racing just seem so high so I'm aiming to spend that time and money looking for some epic rides and getting out into the real wilderness as much as possible. Cape Wrath looks like an exciting possibility and I'd like to get the bike over to Skye for some big mountain riding.

On thing I am going to have to spend some money on is the World Cup at Fort William in June. I hope to get there for a couple of days and I'll try to get some video of Steve Peat, Sam Hill, Greg Minaar, Tracy Moseley and friends letting gravity do it's thing and I think Brian Lopes and Jared Graves will be riding in the 4X so right now I'm getting pretty stoked at the prospect of an awesome weekend. Let's hope that the warm weather is here in force by then and that we get glorious sunshine for a fantastic summer of riding.

No Fuss Events: Relentless 24: 2009

What's it like to take part in a 24 hour Enduro?

So I've finally got round to editing the footage we took at Relentless 24 last year... only six months on... We had such a good time at the event and I thought I might as well post the finished video on here. Relentless 24 is run by No Fuss Events and takes place in October at the Nevis Range track at Fort William. This is the home of the infamous black downhill course (with gondola access), the World Cup XC course and numerous other brilliant trails made up of great technical climbs, fantastic single-track and tons of linking fire roads. The Relentless takes place partly on the World Cup course, partly on the Witches Trail and also on other bits and bobs linking it all together.

I raced as one half of a pair, you can choose from solo, pairs or quads in a team and one member of the team can be on course at any one time, so you just keep one person on the track for as much of the 24 hours of the race as you possibly can... Sadly I didn't have the technology to video whilst riding at that time so there's no footage of the track itself, which was pretty technical and after a while very muddy and very slippery.

This is definitely an event we'll be doing again, although possibly as a team of four. In a pair, you really don't get as much time between laps as you might wish you could have whereas in a four you'd get a few hours between each 10 mile lap...

I'll be posting about the races I'm considering taking part in during 2010 at a later date, but for now, here's Relentless 24 2009.

click here to go to the video...