Monday night ride with Blox, Neil, Dee

As you'll see from the stats below, Monday's ride was always going to be a challenge! Firstly Dee kept up easily with Neil and myself on his bone shaker of a bike and secondly note to all, always carry two spare inner tubes and gas!!!

We went over the top of Ampthill hill and went over to Milbrook followed by with the extra corner added at the bottom of the sandy downhill out of Milbrook woods (just for good measure) Like I already said Neil and I didn't stop just slowed down on the flats for Dee to draw level (which he did within a few seconds).

We joined up with the normal course through Eversholt and Tingrith and popped out by the Drovers Arms in Stepingley where we decided to go off to Flitwick woods. There lies our error! within half a mile Neil has two flat tyres with 4+ punctures and I had a flat back puncture! Dee on his slicks was fine.

I guess it doesn't always pay to be at the front! The two of us ran along side Dee on his bike to the nearest street light and tried to fix the bikes. With only one inner tube between three tyres we attempted to fix up the punctures with my repair kit. Only one gas canister to boot we tried pumping up the tyres with my crappy pump. Needless to say Neil walk to his sisters for a lift and Dee and I limped home with a slow flat back tyre. We were going great guns until then.

Big bulk order of inner tubes and gas canisters are now on order so this never happens again.

Here's the link for the Profloat CO2 pump (40psi on a MTB or 130 psi on a road bike tube)

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Innovations_Proflate_16_Pump/5360017951/

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17489111

Food

Hi everyone.

If you require food on Thursday, please let me know via the blog. I will be collecting money when we arrive at the pub. No money, no food!

Monday night ride with Ampthil MTB

Hi all,

please see the stats for our ride tonight.

http://connect.garmin.com/player/17176052

See you all out on Thursday

Blox

Thursday Ride

Hi All,

Carbon Paul, Rob and myself were out tonight! You all missed a really good one, we've changed the beginning of the ride thanks to Rob and it now takes in the Millbrook part of the ride.

Click on the link below to view stats and track.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/16841410

Enjoy the extra hour in bed on Sunday morning and I'll see you all on Monday

Blox

Thursday 22nd

Hi everyone

I'm still waiting for my new lights to arrive - spoke to the supplier today and they reckon I should have them on Monday.

Hopefully see you all on 26th.

food tomorrow

Not sure of numbers tomorrow, so if you are coming and eating, then please bring your own food. Thanks.

Monday night ride over to Chicksands

I think we'll all still be smiling as well as aching tomorrow after such a good ride out to Chicksands tonight!

Myself, Fuz, Neil, Dee & Greg chose to take in the fast single tracks and hellish climbs, whilst Dave, Paul & Chris went on the normal route over to Eversholt.

pretty normal start over to Maulden woods (no swinging in the tree vines this time from Neil) with only my light cable coming loss whilst going down the sandy hill making me nearly crap myself.

We all decided to let Fuz go first down his favourite single track just outside of Chicksands woods. It was the right decision to let him rip or should I say calve his own track down there, no stump or branch stood a chance with his Giant hardtail thundering through, needless to say no one got close to him so he finished with a celebrated chunder at the end!!!!

Chicksands is just the best place in the dark, you don't feel the fatigued for some reason, probably the adrenaline kicking in as you go speeding down the track with roots pinging you up every two seconds.

Another single track race down and out of the woods with no crashes and up in to Haynes along the road. We headed back down through Limbersey Lane in Maulden at a really good speed with myself and Neil racing only to be over taken by the flying Fuz which was not expected.

All very good and definitely what we all needed.

I've put the states on the link below: -

http://connect.garmin.com/player/16017155

Monday 12 October - No Van

Sorry Guys, I can't get the Van tonight so it looks like we'll have to do the normal route.

Afan Oct 09 Pic's

Garmin link for Monday 5th Oct ride

At the Cycle show yesterday, Fuz and I visited the Garmin stand to see what's new and discovered (free of charge) a new training web application with really cool stuff on it.

I've tried to link our ride last Monday on here, but I think it's got everything for 09 listed.

Click on the link below and let me know what you think.

Garmin Connect -
Activity Details for
Untitled

Shared via AddThis

TREK 8500 (2008)

Just in case any of you are interested I am selling my old hardtail on ebay this weekend. They seem to sell for about £700 on the site but if anyone is interested i'm looking for £500 minimum. Less hassle than ebay. Most of you have seen it but if any of you or your friends are interested get them to give me a call and they can come and have a ride on it. The frame is a 19.5 inch which i think is a large. Other than that look on evens cycles as i think they still sell them. It was £1400 new.

Food on Monday

Hi everyone.

It's Sam here updating for CarbonPaul! I am doing some rather nice food for Monday. £2.00 a head. Please can you let Paul know tomorrow at biking, or email/txt so I can confirm numbers? Thanks.

Sam :-)

The Drovers beer and curry festival.

When Dave fell asleep....

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

The Good

I said I would post a link to the website I made about UK trail centres:

http://mtbtrailtime.googlepages.com

Also there are some routes near Ampthill if you search this site: http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php

The Bad

I have a cold :-( - a proper one NOT man flu!! - and not sure if I will be able to make it out tomorrow :-(

The Ugly

Thats me with a cold!

If I'm feeling better I may miss the ride but join you in the pub. If not, see you on the Chicksands trip on Monday.

Exposure Red Eye

Dave is the Exposure red eye rear light worth buying ?

Food for Thursday anyone??

I have received orders for Chicken wings from Carbon, Dave, Rob, Fuz and Claire for Thursday. If anyone else wants some they are £1.12 for 8x wings please let me know by tomorrow midday.

Great ride last night, despite the complaints I think Fuz is secrety in love with his hard tail!!!

Monday 5 October 2009

Just a couple of things to say:

1. Welcome Claire, first ride out with us tonight and a good show, nice to see someone giving Blox a ride for his money up Station Road, Hope you enjoyed yourself and look forward to seeing you out on Thursday.

2. Xmassy, Dave and Carbon - Beers paid!

3. Yes please for chicken for me on Thursday!!!!!

4. I now know why I spent all that money on the Orange!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Riders out Me, Blox, Xmassy, Dave, Carbon, Dee, Rob and Claire.

Next Monday we will be off to Chicksands, meet in the normal place same time, Xmassy will be seeing about a van for the homeward leg, more time fun riding , less time slog home!!

Thusday 1 October 2009

The full (hopefully) extent of the damage from Thursday night:
Snapped chain, bent rear derailleur, bent mech hanger, bent QR skewer from rear wheel, all the above require replacement! Not to mention the numerous nicks, scratches and gouges taken out of the previously lovely green swingarm.

“Tonight Mathew I will be riding………….the Giant”. Could be a little hairy going back to a hardtail with 80mm front travel from my matched 140mm front and back! My arse is not looking forward to it!!

Anyhow back to Thursday, those out were:- Me, Blox, Carbon Paul, Dave, Dee and xmassy. In Steppingley (Centre Parcs) woods the group was split 50/50 as half took the sandy gulley whilst the other 3 opted for the soft option (no names).
It was just after we reformed to climb up through to the back of the woods when catastrophe struck, chain snapped, initial response (stick a gold link in and carry on) actual response on investigation (f**k, walking home) and Dee went off to catch up with the others and tell them I’d meet them in the pub.

I cobbled together a single speed and decided to carry on through the woods and then back on the road from Steppingley, however upon reaching the road, my bike now on auto pilot headed off towards Eversholt with a few shortcuts/detours I met up with the others between Eversholt and Tingrith and came back from there with them, completing the ‘Bog’ and the ‘Field’ up to the ‘Big House’ without a foot down.

The boys kindly stopped pedalling along the road back from Steppingley and in the slipstreaming in the ‘Lotus’ position I was able to stay with them until Blox took advantage of the slow pace and made a break for the bypass, don’t know if anyone caught him, as Dave and I battled up the bypass and Station Road, me with one gear and burning legs and Dave wit a flat tyre.

Refreshments in the E&T as usual Dave, Carbon and xmassy, your pints will be repaid Monday! Thank you! see you then.

Cheap light!!

As promised last night this is the link to the light from dealextreme which when coverted from the dollar price shown works out at about £55: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.29489 they are basically a Chinese copy of the Lupine Tesla at £274, see http://www.evanscycles.com/products/lupine/tesla-4-front-light-ec017434?query=Lupine. I have ordered one which I hope arrive in the next few weeks (shipped from Hong Kong) so it will be interesting to see how good they are!! If you want to do some research on these lights you can visit various discussion forums which can be found by typing 'magicshine' into Google search.

P.S. - Dee, I have a spare light you can borrow until you decide what you are going to buy. It's home made but does the job a lot better than your current lights!! I'll bring it along on Monday.