Stodge-Blog – Page 64 – its all about stodge, bikes, MTBO and the outdoors

November 14, 2009November 14, 2009

Spring? and ‘Hope’fully normal training resumes !

New toys and the enjoyment of getting back into training after several weeks of disjointed riding were the feature of this week, with no competitions this weekend though the weather has shown that winter is nearly here.
My left knee now seems back to normal now, though I have found that perhaps I was irritating it by having my seat too high on various bikes, particularly my turbo trainer. On rest night next week I will get all the bikes out and a tape measure and try to optimise not just seat height but for/aft position too. Most people who try my race mountain bike tend to comment it is very ‘long’ so in will be interesting to put some figures to it.

This week I finally received my new light a Hope Vision 4. This 4 LED light is one of the best on the market and as I got a good price through Ada I decided I’d give it a go. Although the weather forecast for Friday evening was horrible the ‘Berkswich year 2 dads ride’ went ahead and I got the chance to try out my new toy. One of the other Dads had his Chinese Ebay specials out for their first outing which looked very good value to but I think their lumen claims are a fair way off the mark. The Hope 4 was just awesome, particularly on low where the battery is alleged to last 30 hours. I used the full power on a couple of descents and immediately pulled a huge distance out on the two Simons, one an ex bmx racer who is normally all over my rear wheel.

The weather got worse and the mud and sand mixed with brake discs and chains was making horrible a noise but my noise got very loud on a climb out of the Sherbrook Valley. I stopped and eventually diagnosed it coming from the rear brake. Wheel removed showed the spring to be mangled up inside the caliper. After removal I tried to get the pads to seat but ended up riding home carefully with only the font brake. Lesson, a spare brake pad srping will join the little bag of spares and tools I always carry in my pack. For interest this now contains :
Chain Splitter, 2 allen keys, 1 tyre lever, 1 Tube, 1 Rear mech hanger, 2 SRAM power links.

With several good rides under my belt this week I am hoping to resume a full training schedule next week but have decided to lay of the running for a few more weeks to make sure I do not get any niggles returning.

November 8, 2009November 8, 2009

Event Report – D&W #1 – Hayfield

Up until Friday afternoon I was still unsure as whether to ride or not in this the first of the Dark and White Winter series. Following the discovery of my large bruise I have been struggling with knee pain, particularly where I had Osgood-Schlatter disease as a teenager. I think all the problems I have had, including the ripped muscle have been caused by the impact injury I sustained a month ago whilst running which perhaps I should have rested more before recommencing riding.
Anyway back to the event. Hayfield is one of those villages in The Peaks where the mountains rise on all sides, steeply to open moorland. Starts were early because of Remembrance Parades and we arrived in plenty of time. After chatting to a few people I realised that a good league score was not on the cards as local and national legend Nick Craig had decided to ride. I have only ridden the area around New Mills and Hayfeild once several years ago, but the riding is stunning and several tracks brought a smile to my face (well the ones that used gravity to my advantage did). I started off scrappily picking up the two controls to the east, but this was a mistake as it involved a lot of climb for so few points. I then didn’t spot a high pass near #5 which would have saved me another climb. My route to the 25 pointer #8 was a lucky pick though as the decent to #10 was a foul muddy track where I passed lots of people struggling upwards. The rest of the ride was fairly straight forward but towards the end I decided not to push my luck, particularly as I was tiring and didn’t want to get another niggly injury. Rather that coming in via #4 and perhaps being a couple of mins late I opted for the fast route down the main road. The decent was amazing, with the GPS showing I hit 41 mph at one point. I think the sporty Volvo hatchback that exiting the junction at the top of the pass in front of me had a shock through the bends with chasing him down in his rear mirror !

Another great event from Dark and White ( I only needed to get the descriptions out once) which I thoroughly enjoyed. Although I only got 11th which would normally be disappointing, the quality of the field was very high and with the injury niggles I have had over the last month I feel quite pleased.

Results available here http://www.darkandwhite.co.uk/results/D&W%20Winter%20League%200910%20-%20Round%201%20-%20short.html

October 25, 2009

Cramp ?

Sitting in the bath after the event in Somerset today getting rid of all the grime I was shocked to find this bruising on my inner thigh. I have had some tenderness since racing last weekend but I had no idea I had done anything like this and have been training on it all week! Probably a bit late for some ice ?
Cath thinks its probably a tear of one of the muscles in my inner thigh that I got when I was trying to stretch out the cramp at the Sherwood pines enduro. Possibly explains my poor last two lap times a little?

October 25, 2009October 25, 2009

Staple Common District Event – Somerset

A weekend at my parents in Somerset gave an opportunity to go back to an orienteering area of my youth, Staple Hill. Only about 7 miles from home it takes the form of a very steep escarpment forming the side of the little known Blackdown hills, which always lose out to the the popularity of their larger cousins of Exmoor and the Quantocks. Castle Neroche and Staple Common have undergone alots of changes since I was last there including the obvious felling and growing but less obvious grazing by long horned cattle and a new accessible bridleway which snakes its way along the ridgeline.
I got an early start and was prepared for it to be tough . The route to #1 certainly gave that. As soon as I left the path I was threading my way through fallen trees, dense bits of woodland and the inevitable marsh and bogs caused by the cattle. I had a fairly clean run only making a couple of errors but the course was challenging with few path options and plenty of rough tough forest. The roughness was OK though as it was not all bramble and brashing, more fallen trees, tussock and bog.
As I moved towards the end of the map before the turn I noticed blobs of flour. Crossing the openland I then heard the familiar cries of On On coming the the ridge. I crested the ridge after #10 to face Taunton Hash House Harriers all coming towards me and it was good to recognise a few faces Ive not seen for 15 or so years.
The planner (Will Kromhout who I was in the SW junior squad with many moons ago) had one last trick up his sleeve with a nasty contouring cross country leg back through the cattle trodden thick forest. I was driven too low by the vegetation and had to climb back up but I am assured that the light green was ‘quite nice’ when you got into it.
Results at http://www.quantockorienteers.co.uk/

October 24, 2009October 24, 2009

Singlespeed !

With an improvement in strength on the hills this winter’s training goal, coach Ada has decreed that I should get a singlespeed mountain bike. Not wanting to spend much money as I need a new race frame this year I decided to try and build it from bits.
Bringing together all my spares, old bits and Cath’s bike I started to think of how perhaps I could end up with not just a singlespeed but a bike better suited to Cath. Cath has been riding an ancient steel framed Diamondback Apex which we bought second hand from a friend at least 9 years ago. It has early air front suspension , V brakes and a very old school long framed design. It has always been too long for her and we have tried various stem and handlebar options over the years to help shorten it.
After much prevaricating I decided to build Cath a decent bike with all the best bits and hack the rest into a serviceable singlespeed for me, lucky Cath! Merlin Cycles, near Preston, had a great deal on their 2004 aluminium frames, complete with headset and seatpost – £99. Caths new bike was built around this and has the following spec: 15 inch Merlin Frame (new), cheap FSA chainset (new), XT rear mech, Deore front mech, Hope XC / Mavic 819 wheels (tubeless), Magura Julie disk brakes, Rockshox 2004 SID team, and various original bits of finishing kit – not bad for £160 + old bits

On to the singlespeed then. After various conversations and web research I settled on a conversion kit from Charlie the Bikemonger. ( who I can reccomend highly) They have some great videos

showing how to bodge a singlespeed using a cost effective kit which Keith Floyd style seems to involve drinking beer between tasks. The kit consists of some spacers to use on an existing Shimano freehub, two cogs (16 and 18 tooth), new shorter chain bolts, an 1/8 chain and a chain tensioning device to make up for the frames lack of sliding dropout all for about £40. STX RC V brakes (1995), XT 110 bcd 5 arm 18/36 chainset – (1992), XT / Mavic wheels (1995 ish) and the yet unidentified front air shock completed the setup, however much to my dismay the diamond back was just too small (15 inch) to be comfortable and the seatpost was just too far past its max, it also was in desperate need of a new headset. After the first build I gave in and again visited Merlin to get another one of their 2004 Malt frame deals, this time with a bottom bracket thrown in rather than the seatpost, and moved everything across onto it, only to find the old air shock headtube to be too short. A work colleague kindly gave me a very old set of spring / elastomer Manitou forks which although very soggy fitted but it was obvious that they were just too soggy to be of much use.
An evening of web research led me to try boiling the elastomers on the stove and replacing of the fork oil with Castrol GTX ( much thicker) which has more or less made them serviceable again. Fantastically luck did eventually catch up with me and I didn’t need a chain tensioner to start with, the chain fitting perfectly, but after 3 or 4 rides the stretch on the chain and lumps and bumps has had it off a few times so the tensioner will be going back on soon.

First impressions of singlespeed riding is I love it and would ideally like to build a modern spec quality singlespeed at some point to make things more comfortable but for the time being my thrown together budget bike should do the trick.

October 18, 2009October 21, 2009

Dark & White Enduro – Sherwood Pines

Adrian from Dark and White had spoken to me earlier this year about their first foray into Endurance MTB racing. He had thought of holding it on Cannock Chase but in the end decided on the safe bet of Sherwood Pines. I nearly didn’t race. Id had a niggly knee injury following my fall a couple of weeks ago and to top it all I got a cold in the week before. I finally made the decision late on Saturday after a couple of test rides on Fri / Sat but unfortunately this meant leaving Caths parents at 6 to get over in time for race start at 10 sharp.

The drive over the peaks at dawn was gorgeous and of course there was no traffic at all on the road. The start involved a 400 metre run Le Mans style to our bikes. Although we were issued with a map at registration the course was marked with tape and signs along its length but having it on the map board did help antipate the climbs and turns. I tucked in in about 5th place for the first few laps and rode mostly on my own. Half way round the second lap I started to lap the slower riders, including one nutter on a Unicycle and a couple of kids who were doing fantastically. It was great to see a young girl riding with her dad in an enduro (and ride the whole 4 hours) I then started to make inroads into the 4 in front of me and pulled past one rider. However after 3 hours on my 5th lap I started to feel the beginnings of some cramp. I quickly got more liquid down me but it was too late and I ended up off the bike for about 5 mins walking, stretching and generaly leaping about in agony until the water did its stuff and the pain subsided. I knew I was in trouble though with an hour to go. I got most of the rest of the 2 litres I was carrying down me and grabbed a cup of water as I started the last lap. Towards the middle of lap 6 it happen again only worse. I stretched and walked and then carried on gingerly picking very low gears on the climbs trying not to trigger a spasm. Unfortunatley on the last climb I was caught by another rider and pushed back to 5th. I just couldnt get any power onto the pedals without cramping. The last climb out the way I really went for it to try and get 4th place back and although I pulled a lot back I was pipped by 20 secs.
I ended up 5th overall and 3rd in class about 15 mins down on fellow MTB team member Killian lomas. The prize giving was good with prizes donated by Outdoor Designs and a local bikeshop http://www.hikebikeandride.com – I got a dry bag, which Ive always wanted !
I enjoyed the event and the lap was about the right length but Sherwood pines is punishing with very few long descents where you can recover. The si timing boxes round the course will add something to the results analysis and of course reduce the chance of cheating by shortcutting but with higher numbers there would be a queue for punching. I thing there should probably be a box on a stake on each side of the track perhaps. Well done Dark and White for trying something new.
Stats – 4hours 15 mins -6 laps – 82 km – 800 metres climb

October 16, 2009October 16, 2009

New ‘Giant’ sculpture on the chase

During a ride today I came across this new sculpture at Birches Valley, next to Swynos at the start of Follow the Dog ! Im sure it is the Giant logo from memory, which would make sense as they are sponsoring the new trails on Cannock Chase. Its lots of bike bits joined together and is worth a close look if you are there. Some of the chain rings look in quite good nick !

Riding up through Tackeroo there seems to be lots of Clixbys signs out and new singletracks seem to be appearing all the time. I can see Cannock Chase turning into the biggest trail centre in the country with the number of chimneys within an hours drive !

October 8, 2009

A busy weekend !

On Saturday Cath planned and organised a first in Orienteering, a Maize Maze sprint event at the National Forest Maize Maze near Burton on Trent. The format consisted of two qualifiers (added to give a overall time to decide start order for the final) and a final which was run in the dark.
Our club was also organising a traditional low key event on the Sunday at Birches Valley at which I was running the timing. Unfortunately Cath’s car broke its cam belt last week so we have been struggling with hire cars and lifts from friends which complicated matters further.

We had had a trial Maize Maze race in September for club members which seemed to go well and looking at the pre-entry list, it consisted of approx 100 orienteering connoisseurs, many travelling a great distance to take part. To make life even more complicated on the day I got a puncture in my car as well !

I managed to run both qualification races, where although I had obviously an advantage having seen the map and run there before I was pleased with my times only a minute off the pace. Working out the start times for the night leg in Excel got a bit frantic and I had to escape to a quiet hidey-hole to concentrate, though still with Cath’s choice of ‘Maze’ songs playing over the tanoy…. ‘Wurzels, I’ve got a brand new combine harvester’ and’ The Great Escape’ to name a few.

The event was very well received with many blog articles and forum postings praising this new event format. Well done Cath ! www.walton-chasers.co.uk – full results and maps etc available here :http://www.walton-chasers.co.uk/results/2009/Maize2009/Maize2009.htm

Sundays event was a less stressful and I managed a run on the brown course. My legs and particularly my knees were aching from the day before so after a fast start I settled back into a steady run. Other than a mistake near some unmarked paths I ran clean until I stumbled on a track near the finish twisting my ankle and fell heavily on the gravel, ending up with the classic schoolboy playground combo of deep knee and palm grazes. I fluffed the next control by about 20 secs wincing from my knee as I ran but finished OK in a respectable 7^th with mostly ex British Squad members in front of me.
Stafford St Johns Ambulance were great, not faffing and just giving me some sterile wipes and the water I needed to clean myself up.
So a busy weekend but I hope we have started something and other clubs jump on the Maize Maze wagon.