First Ride- Lapierre Zesty 514L

First ride on my new bike, headed up Reigate Hill to Colley Hill and almost managed the whole climb in one go - a real benchmark of how much easier this bike is to pedal.

Met a guy called Terry at the top who tagged along with me, poor thing I was really riding fast what with fresh legs and a new bike toi test out. We made it all the way to Box hill and then back. Some 44kms on the clock- I normally only do around 24-33km so this bike is getting me more mileage already!

More later...

Break a bike leads to Buy a bike

Here it is my NEW bike! That was quick eh? Well I have been riding the demo bike from Nirvana Cycles for a couple of rides and have been amazed at how much faster I an ride on a lighter bike. This bike really shifts the moment I stamp down on the pedals- wow!

Plus its got 5 inch travel front and back which is more than my Cove Hustler did. Combining that travel with lighter weight and I really fly off little skippy airs on the trail. It also has a 5 year warranty, better than my 1 year Cove.

So it did not take too much time for me to decide and lay some cash out.

This is the stock Ladies Lapierre Zesty 514L but I've changed the setapost and setm to Thomson's and put a light Monkeylite handlebar on with my Stroker brakes, I'll sell the white Formula Oro K18s. The first time I've ever bought a women's specific bike- it feels like a good fit 45sm version, its only 5mm shorter in the TT but the stem is shorter I thin (90mm). I have to admit I mainly bought the female version as it comes in blue (like last year's men's bike) rather than white this year which I'm not keen on. We had some debate as to what it would have on it to make it girly and indeed it does have a couple of flower decals but they are very subtle.

I particularly like the washing instructions under the downtube ...

  

Initially I thought the sag indicator was a bit of a gimmick but actually I find it really useful to know what sag you are running just by looking down. It'll be good to see if that helps ongoing.

  

Nice to be running tubeless tyres again. Well must get out and ride it now- have to face up to the fact it has to get muddy soon. Watch this space for reports.

Broken Bike

 

Oh dear! I was just riding along and "bang" this happened.

I had just headed out for a quick 2hr ride around the North Downs starting at Box Hill.

It was very muddy indeed and it was a bit of a slog but eventually I was up at Leith Hill and the views were fantastic, no-one around and the sun out- lovely. So I thought about 40-45 mins to get back before it gets dark.

I set off down to Summer lightning and rode the first 3 sections. I headed down the last section and skipped off a tiny little tree stump getting about 3 inches of air (as I do) as I landed the bike went "bang" and I though blimey how could I have bottomed out my shock over that tiny bump? I tried to pedal on but something was rubbing my tire and the  bike had squatted down.

I looked down adn to my horror saw a snapped seat tube below the weld under the swingarm attachment/pivot. Ow! That hurts! I love this bike!

I've been riding this old Hustler since August 2005 and its great! I can't believe our love affair is over- boo hoo!

Anyway I had to run and carry the bike down to Nirvana Cycles in Westcott which took me an hour! Jackie was there and said this had never happened before until this week and now she has seen 2 in 1 week! One on the newer version and one on my older model.

I will look into the crash replacement deal as the 1 year warranty has expired. Jackie was great she leant me a Giant hire bike so I could pedal home in the dark off road back to Box Hill. What a ride!

Never broken a bike frame before- not sure whether I'm proud I wore a bike out or gutted to lose it. Both I think! (Although given I ride my Cove G-Spot and Cove Stiffee too its hard to believe I rode enough for 3 years to wear the Hustler out, especially as its built for the North Shore!)

Jesse & Lucy's birthday

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Jesse & Lucy's birthday

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Birthday Ride and Cake

This will be a shot that is hard to come by again in the future as Ken has his green card and is off to the US tomorrow but luckliy we got the gang together for a birthday ride for me and despite the yukky forecast of wind and rain, the storm blew itself out overnight and we had blue skies and sunshine for our mud fest!

We rode from Peaslake over Pitch and Winterfold and then back to peaslake for tea. Then over to Holmbury with some playing on singletrack here and there.  The tarils were pretty slimy,not deep mud but a surface mud that sometim

es led to 2 wheel slides - always entertaining! The switchbacks and off camber routs were fun! BKB was a great run down to finish the ride- still fast and flowy with enough wet roots to catch the unaware ones!

We finished at the famous Peaslake village store (of course) for tea and my cake, well earned and 2 pieces for everyone! 

The sun slowly dropped in the sky and we started to shiver.

Then Pete, Is, Ken and I went back to mine to play Wii bowling, unwrap some more cool pressies and go out for a grown up element of my weekend finally - a meal and beer at Cafe Rouge with the great 2 meals for

 price of 1 

deal!

I truly have had a wonderful weekend surrounded by family and best friends, it was such fun!

Happy Birthday to me!

So today was my BIG birthday and what a wonderful celebration it was!

After a cloudy start at breakfast my miserable face gained a smile as the blue skies appeared and 

then the sun followed and before you coukd say Happy Birthday I was out on my bike riding up Reigate Hill the steep way! Glorious views from the top and a fantastic bright day.

A quick shower, game of Guitar Hero then over to M&D's where I was met with a completly decked out dining room and a kitchen laiden with all my favorite foods courtesy of G&H. There were 13 of us there so only Mike's family and Emanuele missing and we ate and chatted merrily.

Then adjourning to the living room for Mum's famous chocolate fudge cake, Ella played Happy Birthday on the organ and then all the kids helped me unwrap my presents!

Boxing gloves for the release of the inevitable frustration this week has brought! Books about riding my bike all over the world, a plasticine bicycle model from Ella and of course the Astrosaurs Academy book for Cal and I to read together.

Then we had a DVD showing of my 40 years in pictures and a repeat showing of Elfy Xmas which had everyone in hysterics. 

As going home pressies we all got "My Little Wrapper" choclates personalised just for me and even some for my bike buddies tomorrow!

I really had a lovely time catching up with ALL my family.

Time to Ride

My first day of unemployment and I made the most of it!

Headed on down to Nirvana Cycles and borrowed the demo bike- a Lapierre Zesty 514 (pictured)- and joined them for the "Old blokes ride"from 12 noon til 3pm- never been out on a Wednesday afternoon round here, always been on conference calls. It's quite odd to see what life goes on beyond the life I've been stuck in!

A great ride- we rode til 3:20 with a short tea break at Peaslake and we covered off around 33km from Westcott to Winterfold and back. I enjoyed riding a lighter suspension bike that still skipped off all the little jumps and roots as we flew over them. I was a bit knackered by half way through though. Its only when you physically put your body to the test that you realise how much emotional strain you've been living with for the past few months.

I need to retain a little stress and wind down slowly just so I don't get ill. Still it's pretty stressful constantly thinking and planning what your next steps in life are going to be.

Step 1- get your big birthday celebrations out of the way.

Step 2- start writing on that blank sheet ahead of you!

Anyway after the ride I went to play with my niece and nephew- what fun to pretend to be a kid again!

I am redundant!

Never quite thought of myself as surplus to requirements but indeed that is what my employer has decided and after a Christmas in limbo worrying about it, today I was finally declared redundant. 

Washed up 5 days before my 40th birthday- oh dear!

So they say life begins...... this week I'm just going to sit back and let life happen and then when that milestone passes at the weekend I'll get back up and plan which direction to head to see where 2009 will take my life. A chance to examine so many opportunities and get out and experience life again beyond the confines of my job.

What will 2009 bring?

Grizedale -North Face Trail

Its about 19 years since I last took this old man's picture- I must try and find that. It was my first holiday alone and after I'd started working and I took my new Saracen Limted Edition (my first real mountain bke) and stayed in the YHA at Coniston I think and cycled loads of trails in my Lake District MTB Trails guide book.

Grizedale was all bridleways then in fact I'd never heard of the term Singletrack then. But nowadays I'm a singletrack addict so I came back to try out the new Singletrack trails of the North Face Trail.

Pete and Is had no bikes so they went walking instead.

I parked up and got my bike out and as I put my front wheel in I noticed a brake pad had disappeared- a search of the car and no evidence of it I panicked I was going to miss my ride. Luckily there is a bike shop at the visitor centre and a very good one it is too- huge and lots of products, they said they try to have some of all the various brake pads and luckily they had some Hayes stroker trails which are in fact different from Hayes Stroker Ryde pads or Hayes Mag pads etc. (Note to self must carry some spares with me!) So my ride was saved! Phew!

It was -1 degrees c outside and I worried about fiddling with the pads in the cold but good old Hayes have made it really simple and these clipped in real quick, calipers pushed back easily and no cold hand fiddling! Only a bit worrying that it looks like the pin on the caliper that the brake pad clip pushes onto appears to be misaligned on one side - this may be a manufacturing quality issue as I've never had an accident since I had these on, that is probably why the pad fell out when I took the wheel off. Ah well it all seemed to work ok but I must watch not to lose these again.

Off I went climbing up the icy doubletrack to the first all weather singletrack route which was a great rolling climb with a few bits of icy boardwalk wood sections about 1m wide with 2 strips of ice either edge meaning you really had to stay central on these.

The trail had a fair amount of Singletrack and lots of wooden sections which ranged from a short raised section to a long winding boardwalk with some off camber turns and some step downs. Fun! Each wood ride youy could hear the ice cracking on either side as I rolled each plank.

Fantastic views across to the Old man of coniston on this beautiful cold sunny day. The trail became a bit more doubletrack/fire road climbing for a while with a few singletrack sections then a slight change in terrain along a more muddy type singletrack descent from Moor top with a good skinny log ride which I managed and then suddenly I was back at the visitor centre.

Funny thing was over 15km it felt like I climber quite a lot bit always just gradual climbs but never got a big DH, I guess it also descends gently. I may post the GPS profile here when I download it.

It was cold in the CP so I stripped and put warm dry clothes on, had a cuppa from my flask and with a smile on my face and a glow in my cheeks started the 6.5 hr drive home satisfied with a great week of activity!

Back to work tomorrow.

Cat Bells Walk

Derwent Water from path up to Cat Bells summit - 3rd Jan 2009

We met up with Jon and parked in Hawes End near Skelgill. Climbed up Cat Bells (451 m) then along the ridge and up to High Spy (620m) then Dale Head (753m) and along Hindscarth Edge to Robinson (737m) then decsending the ridge back to Skelgill.

My love affair with ice (not) continued- at one stage above Miners crag a stream of frozen water blocked the path and made an ice waterfall as it went over the crag edge. I tried to cross it reasonable away from the edge and by stepping on the stones and turf mounds but I had to take one step on the ice. Unfortunately the ice was very smooth and off camber and as soon as I moved my weight onto that foot I fell and started to slide down towards the edge, I grabbed a stone with both hands to stop my slide, I stood up and had to stand on ice this time with both feet but trying to move I fell again and this time my slide went on quite far and panic hit my face as I reached with my trekking pole for a rock and just arrested my slide by hooking the powder rose on my pole on a rock. I managed to slide off but I was pretty shaken. I really could not tell how close I was to sliding over the edge- it may not have killed me but it would have been a nasty injury.

After that I was uber-cautious on every ice or stream crossing!!

We walked for over 6hrs and after 6 days of this I was pretty tired. Had a pub stop and then a snooze before a great Thai meal in Ambleside.

Tomorrow I ride!

Sharp Edge (Not)

We set off with best intentions of scrambling a Grade 1*** over Sharp Edge to the summit of Blencathra (845m). As you can see from the picture it was a cold frosty day with patches of ice wherever there had been water running. In fact ice was worst on the lower slopes. We climbed up to Scales Tarn which was completely iced over and covered with snow, some brave souls were walking right to the middle of it, despite the mountain rescue warning that if you fall in you will die as it takes around 45mins for anyone to turn up. We are so fascinated by frozen water and the ability to slide! Maybe its just we rarely get the view from the middle of the tarn- but me- not tempted not one bit- terra firma for me!

We started the scramble but every rock was icy and frosted and a slip would have had very nasty consequences- there is one tricky gap to get across which as the slab is flat was extremely icy and people were roping it across there but we did not have a rope. We decided thankfully to turn back as it looked worst (more slippery) on the steeper scrambles near the summit. Although we hate to be beaten, we are sensible- - I'd like to do this in shorts and T-shirt in the Summer really!

Unfortunately I decided to downclimb on the steeper sunnier side (with less ice) and after a while I realised that was a mistake so I had to lower myself by tricep dips and bum slides- not elegant and pretty scary but a relief to be down! I can say I really do not like ice unless its very thick and I have an ice axe in my hand!

We contoured around towards Mungrisdale Common and up to a cairn at 683m over Bannerdale Crags then we "skied" down (on our feet) the steepest route to the path by the stream around White Horse Bent to decend back to Threlkeld where the pub was shut!!

We ended up at the lovely cafe in Grasmere for Panini's and hot chocolate lovely. (With a brief visit to Rock Bottom)

New Years Day

Happy New Year! Wow 2009 is guaranteed to have a lotta change for me that is all I know. Time will tell what change that is but I'm determined it will be change for the better- chase the silver lining. Anyway here is how it started....





Usually this is the hangover walk but not for me!

We kept it a low level one though and Pete and I went on the 1st shift (fewer hangovers and quicker readiness, although maybe its just we two are too fidgetiy to wait for others). We walked from Ambleside to Loughrigg tarn and then for lunch at the Brittania Inn in Elterwater. The others were to follow shortly but they left a little too late and we had left the pub by the time they arrived. We walked back along the river Brathay 4 miles and 2/3 to Ambleside. Had a hot choc and cake then shopped around the outdoorsy shops. mmmmm!

Bike Treks had me drooling over bikes and bike bits but not spending!

I'm at my interaction and drinking limit today, so while the others have gone to the pub I'm enjoying interacting online via Skype and facebook and blogging! Maybe I'm losing the skill of interaction in the real world!? I do spend so much time alone at home working and playing that I kinda miss it now when I don't have part of my day doing that! How the world is a changing!