Back in the fold: At Last

Two days, two rides, new bike (replacing the nicked/knackered ones), beautiful weather:

Finished the 456 on Fri night - the BB is still too short despite using a 121mm axle on the Deore crankset - should be 118 really (as far as i can work out), with a 121mm as extra, but I've not heard of Deore cranks running a 126mm axle (which it seems i need). Maybe my super human arms have forced the cranks onto the axle past the splines. GRRRR


anyway :-)

quick hr up Lordswood on the Saturday to test bike and get back into riding, after 2 meaningful rides in two months. Got lost as usual and got back with itchy legs and scratched forearms

Nipped up to Farley this morning and took in a 15 mile route. Glorious weather - shorts and t-shirts weather, felt hot in my long sleeve, but thin as anything, merino top. Some nice descents
but mainly just a gentle spin with quite a bit of road (just followed the Hants cycling route). I'm so painfully unfit its embarrassing, have to work on that, although I seem to have been saying that for circa two years. Funny point was spinning along an overgrown bridleway, adjusting the glasses on my newly speccy 4-eyes face, and my front wheel disappearing down a nice big hole, sending me supermanning over the bars onto my shoulder (which aches a bit now). Took me a few seconds to work out what the hell had happened - usually when you crash you get that "fuckityfuckityfuck" moment just before you meet terra firma, this time I just suddenly ended up lying in the grass staring at the sky :-)


Bike is ace, build seems a lot lighter than i thought it would - the forks are ace, and it rides really nicely. Think it needs a 60mm stem though (80mm was bought for the Mount Vision, but never used before it broke), and desperately needs bigger tyres.

Saw deer in the throes of the rutting season which was nice, no deer porn though, sadly :-)


More photos over at Flickr

Lordswoodadoodah

Testing the marin with a nice dry dusty spin around lordswood. Didnt get completely lost (for once) and had a nice fast short blast. The bike is ace, especially a large application of GT85 to stop the pivots creaking - rear disc pads still rattle like a bastard though. Just flies round everything and if you do get it a bit wrong, the rear end just sucks it up and saves your arse.

Got up to 28mph in the woods themselves which is quite cool :-) On the way back got into a nice bit of rhythm: Pedal, pedal, whoosh round the corner, shimmy the bars through a gap, pedal pedal, shimmy, whoosh whhosh, duck under tree branch, shimmy through trees, pedal pedal, whoosh round a corner BANG!

Once my head had recentred itself i realised i'd forgotten to duck :-) So glad i had my lid on. Took my (brand new) Zen off to see the damage expecting it to be knackered - not even a scratch - my head echoed for a few secs though :-)

Downsides were seeing how many utter tosspots let their dogs shit in the woods, clean it up but think its ok to leave the bags lying round, oh and the usual piece of flytipping.

I dont care though its a sunny evening :-)

to the pub!