last days of summer

well last week we thought that winter was here, venturing out on thursday 26th august me and massey set off at 7 in the cold and rain, both wearing water proofs after a real slog of a ride in the mud with me nearly coming off 3 times (due to my tyres being 50PSI and pinging off roots left right and centre) we got back to the pub and as it wasnt as cold as we thought so i was wetter on the inside of my waterproof than the rest of my body which was a lesson learnt!!!! Paul then turned up in a similar state. As we sat in the pub window we noticed a splinter cell group cycling past in the wind and rain. Well this week the summer seems to have returned, both tuesdays and thursdays ride were done in glorious sunshine and with not even a hint of a breeze both rides were done at a decent enough pace and with Paul having the funniest off on tuesday the fun never stops!!!!!
there has been very little activity on here so i thought i would try and coax people out for the last few rides of summer before the dredded bog returns!!!!!
so get your bikes out of the shed and come on out for a blast we are still doing tuesdays and thursday leaving the e and t at 7
hope to see you out soon
dave

Thursday Ride out with the boys

Bloody hard but Dave and Blox made it up the Lidlington hills!!!!!

10th April Peaks Ride and Ampthill Curry

We are looking to do a AMB Peaks ride on the 10th April, leaving from Ampthill early in the morning, doing a ride them heading back to Ampthill in the afternoon, heading home to wash up and then meeting for a curry possible at the Rajgate and then a few beers afterwards.

Am looking into possible routes and Dave is also going to flick through his back catalogue of mtb magazines to find a route.

So let us know if you are up for it. There isnt much to arrange other than make sure everyone has got a lift so should be pretty simple hopefully!

Cheers

london to brighton

Hi chaps,
i know a few of us have done this ride before and i know a few were talking about it, so this year i am being more proactive and i will initiate the call. I am setting up a team to ride the london to brighton british heart foundation bike ride that is happening on Sunday 20th June, the registration is on the Team entry

To help your chances of getting a place follow these simple steps:
Before Registration opens you should:
Think about a team name : Ampthill Mountain Bikers

Decide on a team leader who will need to register and pay on Tuesday 2 March 2010: Me
The team leader should set up a BHF website account : which i have done

Prospective teammates should all set up BHF website accountsas well as this will save time later on : anyone wishing to enter will need to do this

Everyone needs to add internet@bhf.org.uk to their address books to help prevent BHF emails being sent to your junk folder.

When registration opens on 10am Tuesday 2 March 2010:
Your team leader should log onto the BHF website
They then need to register themselves for the London to Brighton Bike Ride, pay their £31 entry fee for the event and then reserve places (up to 20) for their teammates.

Your team leader will then get several emails, including an invitation to register.

Forward the invitation to register email to your prospective teammates. who will be able to register and pay for their place in the Bike Ride by clicking on the link in the email.

Team members have until 4pm on 5 March 2010 to use this link to register for the Ride, or until your reserved places have all been used.Make sure everyone has the right team name, and their credit or debit card details handy to pay the £31 entry fee.

I hope you are all up for this let me know before the 2nd March so i can get an idea of interest.
Cheers
dave

Its been a while...

...since I had any mechanical failures so it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Well last night Paul, Chris and myself set of on our normal route with me as has been the case recently rather slower due to a combination of poor fitness since I stopped cycling to work and the tyres on my bike which drag an awful amount. Things were fairly without incident until I reached the bog and after trying to get through and failing I went to change up from the granny gear at which point the gear cable failed leaving me stuck in the granny gear. This meant that the chain was under extra stress and about 2 miles later it snapped leading to a walk home and no pub visit for me! Hopefully this is the only damage although with all the mud I need to give the bike a good wash down and inspection to see if anything else has been damaged! Hopefully Ill be back out on Tuesday and hope to see some of the others out as I think it has just been the 4 of us since Xmas!

Old Sun Bikers Sunday 31 January 2010

“Come out for a leisurely Sunday ride”. Having not been out for a while (Grimsby) and with the new tyre safely on the rear rim I jumped at the opportunity to be entertained by the ‘Old Sun Bikers’. 10 o’clock meet at Nick’s and we set off up Oliver St (Nick, Lewis, Monty, Shorty, Colin and Paul and myself) over the road and down Station Rd, a quick cut through the woods and around the field next to the ‘Ups & Downs’ (or ‘BMX Track’ depending upon your age) bringing us out onto Woburn St by the rugby club. From here it was out to Millbrook via the church and the test track “in reverse” (for those regular riders of this blog that is the ‘right way’ round the test track). The first stoned climb was cleared by all albeit Paul and I on foot (better part of valour and all that).

The first piece of gravity and I decided to take advantage rounding 2 or 3 riders on the outside whilst in pursuit of Nick who obviously jumped the start! Was going well until the gradient started going the other way whereupon I was passed by virtually everyone.

At the next piece of gravity I was given the honour of leading on down, I’d like to think that it was due to my earlier gravity assisted performance rather than the groups hope I might ‘collect’ Taff, who was on his way up towards us, and we all spewed out into Lidlington.

I was nicely pleased when we turned right by the church, heading down to the level crossing rather than up the hill, left just before the rail tracks and followed the road as it turned to track and into the fields. At this point the single group split into three I will call them A, B and C although no indication of speed, stamina or ability should be read into the labelling. Colin, Shorty and myself (B) crossed the rail tracks and continued to follow Taff, Nick, Monty (C) whilst Paul and Lewis (A) had mysteriously disappeared!

Group B crossed the field out the back of ‘Amazon’ and came out at the timber bridge over the new road leading up to junction 13, cross the bridge and up into Ridgmont with a view to meeting up with Group A only to find that by the time we got there they were back in Steppingley and heading hard towards the pub! Group C were last seen as specks in the distance heading off in the general direction of Brogborough and landfill!

Past Ridgmont old church, over the fields, cross the M1, a quick pause for Colin’s puncture, Steppingley woods and dash along Woburn St and safely back to the Oss saw Groups A and B united at somewhere just gone one o’clock. Group C arrived about a couple of pints later with Nick sporting a lovely shade of ‘mud’ down one side!

Skip’s chilli burgers gained general praise from all, washed done with beer, then the bulk of the group moved on to the Sun to continue Lewis’ birthday celebrations, I managed to make my excuses and escaped for home at some point in the middle of the afternoon have, I hope, upheld the honour of this blog.

Great ride and good beer, thank you to the ‘Old Sun’ bikers. We must do it again.

the new beast

On Wednesday evening, Rob and I headed over to Massey towers to try to build me a temporary full suspension mountain bike, with my Bianchi frame on its way to Italy, and Paul having an old Stumpjumer FSR XC lying about in his garage we decided to try and put my components onto the old 2001 (a guess it may be older or one year newer) frame. Our initial problem came before the build when it took us a while to decide how to set up the rear suspension was set up, eventually deciding that we would have to put it on upside down to enable me to get access to the switch to adjust the fox float rp23. After that decision it was time to try to remove the bottom bracket to try and get my FSA crank and BB onto the bike. this was not easy especially as Massey’s book as well as common sense meant we thought the BB would have to be turned one way, when after much brute strength (including Massey standing on Justin’s BB tool, with a monkey wrench attached and rob walloping it with a lump mallet) Massey thought we could try hitting it the other way to loosen it, this in fact proved to be the way it needed to be turned to be removed. so with the main bit removed we thought the bit it screwed into would just pop out, oh no that would be too easy. So we tried knocking it out but this didn’t work so Rob had to hacksaw and then chisel the rest away.
After this everything went pretty much as planned, apart from having to steal a seat post from Jo’s giant, and the rear part of the suspension having a bit of a strange set up when it came to doing the cables, but it was nothing that a bit of masking tape couldn’t bodge.
Well the bike went for its maiden voyage last night, just me and Paul out doing the normal short route, with me not setting the seat height correctly and neither Paul or myself having any tool, due to the stupid backpacks we both have, I could not adjust it. Combining the seat height with the fact that the bike weighs close to that of a small tank the ride was a slow one, well it wasn’t that slow as we did do the ride in 1hr 20 but it nearly killed me. The major plus point of the bike though is it is a mental downhill machine, it was firmly planted with the combined weight of me and the bike plus the suspension being excellent, so with the seat height adjusted for the next ride, I am looking forward to Tuesday’s outing.

Hope to see you there
Dave

thursday 07 Jan 2010

Well last's nights ride was without shadow of doubt the toughest completed loop we have done around our usual circuit.
Only Carbon Paul and myself managed to make it out in the snow, both of our women folk called us mental for even considering it, as soon as we set off we knew it was going to be a special one as the paths were just covered in ice and snow. After getting into the woods the going got really tough as the snow was still deep and frozen underneath so we we trying to get some sort of traction but as soon as you got the wheels spinning they hit the ice and just kept spinning on the spot. After managing to get through the woods and onto the roads, i think we prefered it in the woods, none of the roads have had any grit put on them so they are just solid ice sheets which made riding on them extremely slippy and potentially dangerous as cars that came down also had no grip so were sliding as much as we were. The bog was mental as you could not tell where anything started so the only indication you were in it was the horrible sound ogf you cracking through the ice when you were on it. Going up the farmers field was the hardest it has ever been so by the time we got back to the engine both me and paul had said that it was the most tired we had ever felt after doing that ride. It was a good job Rob and Michelle were there with 75 pieces of indian bits and bobs, bajis, samosas etc and dips washed down with a few pints of speckled hen before a trundle home a warm bath and then i was straight to bed as i was shattered.
It was still a real good laugh, mind you i do wish the snow would sod off as i am quite bored of it now!!!!
see you tuesday
Dave

first 'Tuesday' ride of 2010

The first tuesday ride of 2010 was a quiet one with just Paul, Rob and myself out for a ride. The ride was a belter, apart from the cold the ground was superb reminding us all of summer riding as the ground was so hard and frozen it was almost the same as riding in the finer months of the year. The ride was set at a fast pace considering that none of us have done a thing (apart from eat and drink far too much), which is a good thing as i know i have put on about a stone over the festive season and now i am in a desperate bid to get rid of it. Towards the end of the ride it did start to snow and now sitting at work i know on thursday we will need chains on our tyres!!!!!!
The weight shedding was kicked off with a good start with the ride being set at a good pace, what probably didnt help was the 5 pints in the e and t after as well as the 5-6 slices of a couple of very tasty pizzas (cheers Paul).
We will have to see about the ride on Thursday, no doubt there will be a few of us in the e and t anyway in the bike gear even if we end up just biking to the pub!!!!
see you Thursday
dave

change of night

Happy new year to everyone,
if like me you have put on about a stone over the festive period, i am looking forward to getting back out on the bikes and having a laugh in the cold mud!!!!!
anyway in a bid to try and shed the excess weight i am continuing my kickboxing, unfortunately due to the class being so small the chap that runs it is moving the lesson from a tuesday to a monday evening. I think i have mentioned this to most of you but for those that dont know, I am now going to start going out on a tueday instead of the monday at the same time and meeting at the same place.
so hopefully i will see most of you tomorrow night
cheers
dave

First ride of 2010

Blox and I have decided to venture forth on Sunday morning to shake the last of 2009 from our systems and welcome in 2010.

Meet outside Albion at 9:00am anyone that is interested is welcome to join us.