Holiday

Welcome to the easter Holidays, and in the spirit of travelling home light, i didnt bother to bring either my bike r my computer, and now i need to ride, is so slow. argh. but have been thinking. i bought some new trainers for riding in, as i melted my old ones at busa (see previous post),got some 'hi-tech' clones of salamon trail shoes, which should be good, i was toying with the idea of SPDs, but hen agen, ive heard a lot of mixed press about them and dont know if i can be bothered. my alternative compromise, is, when im road riding wiyth mypretty new unused (still) tyres, ill take advantage of the copper grease on the crank arms and swap the pedals over for the little gay toe clip ones, that came with it, and my big ass flats for XC riding. (do need to find a 15mm cone/pedal spanner though)
was looking at my bike (not mine obviously, but another xtc4) in dave mellors yesterday, i very strange to see it smaller and cleaner and less used, and unlike when it was new, the hideous camo coloured xtc2 looks quite nice, i think its that grass is always greener syndrome. th roadie bikes look quite ace too, expensive though, and thier is nothing to them. i can see me retireing from XC when im old(er) into roadie stuff. argh save me. henny hoo enough waffeling. Roll on term time, seems to be my moto at the moment. H&K, Ol

BUSA 2005 Aftermath Links

British University Student Association Mounain bike Championships 2005, held in Innerleithan, Scotland... were ace!

a hell of a lot happned, i dont know where to start so ill try and give you the jist as best i can.
All the university clubs meet up and race like mad things around, or down the various courses laid out. i was in the sport XC event, which is basicly a fun run, no results for me, i was 53 of 99 i think, the rest of the results, for the 'champs XC' and the DH teams can be found here.
Lots of fun was had by all, late nite camping antics, plenty o' mud, mayhem, burger van nutrition,
i think you might as well just look at the pictures, a picture says a thousand words as they say, and thats a very long blog.

[edit - 00:37] incidently distance covered on the course, 2 laps was 19.86k, and top speed was a whacking 52.3kmph. thats damn quick for single track slalom stuff. i also did the swoops part of the single track 5 times the day before cause it was bloody amazing, the best single track i have ever riden. it was Black grade (Expert) but it was really smooth, flowing, hardpack. which is every XC riders dream in my opinion. i also did the entire course as a practice lap once too and went to Innerleithann for some food once. Not sure what that makes it all in total, but was around 50km im guesing? [edit ends]

http://www.abermtb.fotopic.net/


My Team Photos

My 'the best of the rest'

Jacks Photos

Rich's pix

some random pictures

Andy and his sheep

Us Gawking

Scully n' Mike

Descent World forum page

some great DH pictures by David Chadwick, local pro photographer, sorted into race numbers

Stupid computers

All in all, if youve beeen keeping up to date with mon autre blog, you would know, life is being awkward, one example of this was todays ride, appreantly we did 24.99km, when actually we did 40.6, you see, the wheel size had set itself to 16", and i do not have 16" wheels, so some quick mathamatics, [(24.99/16)x 26=40.6] check me out GCSEs came in useful! now its your turn, if max speed was 33.5kmph, on 16" wheels, what was it on 26" wheels wth the same speed of revolution? I was hungry all day today on NyA summit loop so had minimal energy, resulting in lack of power, walked alot, wanted to walk on flat at one point!, and minimal concentration, stacked myself twice today, bashed mech and cut face and arms. bummer, overall conclusion, better luck next time. Its been a long week, so sod u lot, im off to bed :p . read my front blog for details. XXX

Slick

My sexy ass slicks arrived over the weekend. tenner for the pair from ebay (new) they feel sticky as fook, but i havent fitted em yet. it hink i will some time, and go for that road ride with Alex weve been promising for such a long time. It would appear i have no money left now, and i still ahev to sort outhe busa trip, lots of scary videos posted onthe AberMTB forum, some scary looking drops off the side of mountains etc. im actually looking forward to it suprisingly. I know the climbs wont be my strong point, but i think im gonna have a bit more guts thans ome of the other XCers, lets just hope my forks are ok to take a good kicking for a few hours. first lap will trst conditions, the others will be all out 'catch up time lost on climb' kamikaze runs. wwwwwwwwwwwiked. need to sort transport up there now from london (as cant go in minibus, cause im in london) looks to be around 50 squid. Bum, oh well, overdraft is there for a reason, im not missing busa now. nehoo. gtg. speak later
XXX me

Pedals

Incidently, the Tube cost me £7.50, the pedals cost £9.99 and they are Wellgo replicas of DMR V8s. very grippy, but have munched my shins once already, they are pretty spikey (annd a bit heavy for XC)
wiggle can be found at www.wiggle.co.ukbut its a page that wont let me link to iteems, so you wll have to find em yourself if you want to look at them :pim off to add a shops link list i think. (more fiddiling, if the website breaks that'd be why, so you know)

Bikes are crap

Arse, after Sundays ride, i got that puncture, i ordered a new tube from wiggle, and some sweet pedals too. fitted em, and then my computer cable snapped again, damnation, bodeged with tape, but the wire wasnt long enough, so ive nicked 10cms from my stereo cables (super bodge!) to make em long enough. i sorted that, and now i found, bombing down a hill, that my front brak buzzes, i think its cause i have blown up my fron tyre prety hard and its buzzing cause front braking loads the front fork quite a bit, and it leans on the road buzz, but its still pretty annoying, i think ill leave it and see what happens. either swap pads over from front to ack , they re pretty new so shouldn't matter, and it will tell me if its a contamination problem, if neeeds be i can swap the rotors too.
after tht, ill be letting the tyre back down again, and after THAT, its a trip to the shop, fantabulous.
wheneer i mend somat, or tweek it, somat else breaks, will ahve to stop tweeking. i can tell im gonna need to rewire computer some time, but shoudlent be a major faff, but still hastle nether the less!
Off home for the weekend, so no riding this weekend, which is annoying as theey are off ot CyB apparently. Check the abermtb fotopic account after sunday to see hwat i missed.
XXX
me