Well, as I've mentioned before my knee hurts. Its grumbled on and off for a good few years. It likes to remind me of the misuse and neglect I've subjected my moving parts to since I've been capable of moving around under my own steam. It likes to remind me that I'm not 21 and …
Tag: Mountain Biking
Dedicated Followers of Fashion
I am awesomely weak when it comes to spunking my pitiful disposable income on the latest 'must have' cycling trends. Dropper posts, 29' wheels, 1x whatever drivetrain - I've fitted them all and then wondered why I've really bothered. Even when it's something I really am going to use if there's a chance to over …
The Hopeless Quest for Cycling Nirvana via eBay and Mindless Optimism
Theres a well-known cycling adage that the formula for the perfect number of bikes for a cyclist to own is n+1 where 'n' equals the number of bikes a rider owns at any given time. The implication that a true cyclist is always thinking about the next bike they're going to buy as they toil …
Continue reading The Hopeless Quest for Cycling Nirvana via eBay and Mindless Optimism
So here it is, Merry Christmas, every bodies having….. hugely rising costs!
One of the lesser mentioned and debated side effects of not riding as much as one used to is that bikes and kit simply don't wear out as fast as they did when one is young and keen. I once reckoned that if a cartridge bottom bracket (remember them anybody? - you know the ones …
Continue reading So here it is, Merry Christmas, every bodies having….. hugely rising costs!
Training in Hotel Gym’s – A Special Sort of Purgatory (Populated by some very strange people)
A recent extended trip away with work has kept be off the bike for over a month. In the last 40 odd days I've stayed in about 15 different hotels in various countries from Chile to Australia. Sounds idyllic? Well, somebody has to do it I suppose but it certainly doesn't do anything for ones …
Brexit for Cyclists -Are We In or Out?
Firstly let's get something straight right off the bat. I'm not going too bang on about Polish frame builders or Romanian wheel truing experts coming over here and stealing our jobs. Nor am I going to advocate the wholesale repatriation of families who have come to this country and discovered to their delight they don't have to cycle …
Guilt and Neglect
Guilt is a very corrosive emotion. It nags and niggles and eats away at you from the inside. Insidious thoughts begin to pervade your waking hours and darken your dreams. Its even worse when the cause of your guilt is based and founded on your own wilful neglect of something that once was so special. Once she was …
Self Build Satisfaction – ‘Built not Bought’
'Built not Bought' is a tag line and sticker now currently popular on the modified car scene. Displaying one on the back window or bumper of ones 'ride' proclaims to the world at large (or at least the tiny proportion of it that actually cares) that those ill-advised styling touches and that badly installed exhaust …
Continue reading Self Build Satisfaction – ‘Built not Bought’
My Fat Tyred Addiction
My relationship with cycles with treaded knobbly tyres is a long and complex one. Once way back in the mists of my competitive youth off-road riding meant winter cyclo-cross races held at muddy playing fields or municipal recreation grounds during the road racing off-season. Like many aspiring junior roadies I subjected myself to these bleak windswept afternoons of cycling …
Cycling Forums – I ride, ergo I must always be right, ergo everyone else must be wrong and is therefore a moron of the first magnitude!
Would a relative beginner notice the difference if he bought a carbon fibre framed bike? and would said hypothetical bike make him faster? A seemingly innocent question which was posed recently on one of the most popular UK-based cycling forums in the section specifically for beginners to our sport / hobby. A reasonable enough question for a …
The Declining Cyclist 