Off camping tomorrow for the weekend in wales, which should test the waterproofness of my tent to the max* see what i mean?!

I’d be annnoyed at the weather if it hadn’t been like that for the WHOLE OF SUMMER.

It’ll be quite odd sleeping in a tent without having a race the day after

Getting an Uncle John for the 3 peaks and to do some cross races on over the winter, seeing as leisure lakes don’t seem to be running their little xc races any more - which isn’t such a bad thing as i was desperately running out of space in the house for trophies

The other reason for getting one is because it’ll match my new shoes:

*tent re-waterproofing spray on standby and already packed

…got really skinny tyres on his bike”

asked a youngster out for a ride with his dad round holcolmbe valley, as i skipped and bounced my way past on the cross-tyred scandal.
I didn’t get to hear what the reason given was…probably something about me being stupid, but as skinny as they were, the land cruisers were quite impressive in the grip stakes.
OK so the ground was fairly dry (until it started raining, obviously) so the slick centre section didn’t cause too many sketchy moments, but by running them at about 15psi lower than i ran the michelin muds a couple of weeks previously - as a test of the puncture resistance they claimed to have - they held true for most of the ride. And didnt puncture either, despite me clouting the rim on a couple of rocks coming down from the masts at rivi towards belmont.

My ability to clamber up steep hillsides with a bike on my shoulder is still very poor, though i am getting a bit more used to it, and my overall fitness is somewhere down around my ankles right now.
So low down in fact, that i got overtaken while out on a road ride on saturday morning!! Gasp!!Admittedly the bloke overtook me then slowed down to the point where i caught him back up without changing my speed, but when i stopped to let him get a bit ahead of me (he was fannying around with his shoes, farting about with his gears and generally not riding very smoothly) he obviously cottoned on to the fact that i wanted to chase him down and shot off into the distance over the trough of bowland.
I didn’t see him again. Damn.

No-one overtook me no sunday, in fact i overtook a couple of lads on full sussers just before turning off the a666 over the fells and managed to ride all the way to peel tower past the strawberry duck pub (including a scramble straight up the hillside), turn round and head back past the maggot farm and back onto the road before meeting them again, still on their way out, which was nice

Oh, and on the complaints front; my rear brake pads (from a “well known” company) fell apart while i was riding up towards darwen tower…the braking material was there one minute and gone the next! Bloody good job i wasn’t descending at the time! Luckily i had a nearly worn out pair festering in my camelback so could carry on, but it’s still shit.

God this riding lark’s hard, isn’t it?!

Nipped out for a couple of hours after work on friday on the road bike, headed over some little hillocks to beacon fell, where i practiced trotting up the steep side of the hill a couple of times with the bike on my shoulder (i can’t run, so i do a sort of fast walk/trot thing..like what you’d expect a fat person to do in the direction of a cream cake). Riding back down the gravel track after each climb, on the road bike, was “interesting”, especially trying to jump the water bar/ditch type things but hopefully the cross bike won’t be quite such a shock to the system now.

Sunday’s ride over some of the yorkshire dales round malham and such places (example piccies from other rides on the same route here and here) was wetter than usual thanks to the constant rain this country is drowning in, but still fun, the sun even came out while we sat drinking beer halfway round
(pint of wainwright’s apparently)

Yesterday’s cruise round the lancashire lanes was split down the middle by a nice pint of spitfire and a bowl of pie peas and gravy, yum. I kept the dark lenses in my glasses while riding - a bit of a mistake as it felt like a nightride thanks to the dark clouds, which thankfully didn’t start precipitating until we got home, but seeing as summer can’t be arsed turning up i thought i might as well get some use out of them and just pretend i could see where i was going…

I should probably do some more proper training for the 3 peaks this week and not insert beer stops into all my rides. Hopefully the new bike will be here by the end of the week so i can take it round the legal bits of the course at the weekend

After a couple of weeks of “resting” since SITS (it’s my ‘off season’, so i’m king of slobbing right now…pies with everything and all that), i took myself out for a ride yesterday to get a bit of practice in for the 3 peaks.
Now, my spangly newpompino isn’t here yet (end of next week apparently, woo!), so i chucked a set of michelin mud cross tyres on the scandal (matt’s tyres, no less), pumped them up to 65psi and headed off round the 3 towers route.

I was expecting to fly along the roads like a man possessed on the skinny tyres, but TBH all i discovered was just how good the racing ralphs really are - despite being massooff-wide things they don’t appear to have much more rolling resistance than the cross tyres i was running!
Saying that i was still impressed with just how grippy the mud cross’ were, they gripped far better than i was expecting and didn’t let me down once. Ok it got a bit hairy if i drifted off line, but overall they were great.
They made my hands hurt a bit too, coming down the bumpy descents over rivi, but i can’t really blame them for that.

Major downer of the day (not includingthe constant rain and fact that i wasn’t overheating despite wearing thermal 3/4 leggings in august) came from the Ti eggbeaters, which appear to have died a death in the spring tension department. I’d decided to get used to singlespeeding by just not changing gear (simple, eh?!) but ended up giving up after my feet kept popping out of the the pedals whever i really tried to haul muself up anything out of the saddle. In fact i must have looked like some sort of bicycle-martial-arts-expert as i seemingly ninja-kicked my way up the climb from belmont to the masts at rivi!

Anyhoo, the schwalbe land cruisers* have arrived today, so i’ll fit them on the scandal tonight to start getting used to them - they don’t look anywhere near as grippy (so they should roll faster, i guess) but if they’re good enough for rob jebb, they’re good enough for me!

*THE tyre for the 3 peaks apparently…in fact it won’t be long before the rules state “land cruisers only” i imagine

Nipped out on Saturday to go for a walk over Whernside as a bit of reconnaissance for the 3 Peaks; most of the off-road sections are off limits to bikes apart from race day so walking is the only way to get a look at the tracks used in the race. Sadly all i can confirm after lengthy investigation is that

a) Whernside is big and
b) It’s steep

OK, that’s not strictly true. I can also confirm that it’s very exposed and has one of those descents that should be totally rideable (lots of paving slabs, a few steeper techy sections, lots of loose rocks) but undoubtedly won’t be. Here’s some pics I found on flickr and have blatantly robbed to illustrate what I’m on about:

(this seems to belong to nick3216’s gallery, so go look at that)

Am I still looking forward to the race? Well yes, kind of. It will certainly be a grand day out on the pomp…which I haven’t actually got yet…though i think i’ll be more in the “hairy legs and stop for a pasty” brigade rather than the “shaven legged whippet” catagory.

As soon as the new bike arrives I’m going to head back over there and cruise round the road sections to get an idea of where I’m going.