falling off bikes since 1975

Chipps asked me yesterday how many SSUKs I’d done. I’d never given it a thought. I knew that I’d missed the first (Hinchwick Manor, Gloucestershire fact fans) and one in Wales, which it turns out meant that SSUK 08 would make it a dirty* dozen. Past experience at Drumlanrig Castle told me it would be a dirty dozen.

The Inbred pile is no fun anymore, not now that Brant has offered the Inbred in colours other than white, so it falls to the Trek 69er to provide a pile of identikit singlespeeds. Someone moved all the Spots this year too, but instead of looking for a black bike amongst many I just looked for the red brakes and found it in time to set off somewhere around halfway up the field.

The Drumlanrig singletrack has improved with age, and is now well bedded in. A ribbon of trail too narrow to allow comfortable passing runs through woods of moss and bluebells in colours of the purest green. In dry conditions it’s fast and frantic, with no room to pass, the rocks and roots easy to negotiate. With a night of rain to make everything slick it’s a proper test not just of fitness but finesse. Momentum is your friend in on a course like this. Pick a tree at the far side of the obstacle, straight line it over the roots before they have time to spit you sideways, then as soon as you have front wheel traction turn hard before hitting the tree. And repeat. I swear there isn’t a constant radius curve on the whole course. Of course if this technique fails you’re either picking your teeth out of the tree bark, or on your arse by the trail side with a queue of singlespeeders taking advantage to get past.

This kind of riding is tiring not just on the legs but the arms and concentration. People were already tiring towards the end of lap one of three, and I was mightily relieved on lap two as I rode** the final climb of the course to be passed by eventual winner Phil ‘The Horse’. My relief was such that I could even ignore his costume of early ’90s GT All Terra hippie dayglo shirt and fake denim cycling shorts.

SSUK is no longer tagged on to the side of other events, and has become a race in it’s own right. Never again will I reach the dizzy heights of fourth place (OK, out of four). I need a new niche.

Thanks to:

Sam for organisation, Rik for patches, Buccleuch Estates for the burgers.

* None so dirty as Cheddar 2001 though. Kirstys headset never recovered.
** for a given value of rode.

Rode out on Thursday night and picked up some punctures. Fixed four of them Friday evening.

At the same time I fixed a couple of punctures in Zak’s spasticar cripplechariot*.

Eva and ‘Puncture Boy’

Saturday morning and Zak gets another puncture. My rear tyre is flat too, so I find the one I’d missed, fix that, and sort Zaks cart out again.

Sunday morning taking Zak for his walk before we set out for SSUK and he flats again. At Drumlanrig I have some time to kill before the race, and find and fix five punctures in Zaks wheel. I’ve no patches left and still it deflates. I have to buy another set of patches from Rik’s Bike Shed (no 14″ tubes in stock), and, you guessed it, still it goes flat. I find two more I’d missed, and it seems to be holding. Ten minutes later, up by the castle it is flat again.

I have fixed more punctures - fifteen, count ‘em, fifteen - in the past two days than in the past three years. This afternoon shall mostly be spent with a bucket of water and a pile of patches.

* wheelchair.

SSUK 08 has appeared over the horizon incredibly quickly this year.

See you there.

Sports Class racer heading for a fall

I went to marshall at the Early Dawes race the other weekend, a brand new grassroots race at Walton Woods, Walton on Trent. Driving past Catton Park on the way to the race I was encouraged to see small children sledging down parts of the Sleepless In The Saddle course, especially as Walton Woods also forms part of SITS.

Wearing all my layers against the cold and with an extra coat and a chair I made my way to my designated marshall point. Normally the start of a climb today it was being used as an off-camber descent and the little kicker lip might prove interesting.

It certainly proved my theory that Sports class - and I’ve been mired in that class myself for 18 years on the grounds of lack of fitness* - are on the whole pants bike handlers. While expert racers handled the lip with aplomb - only one guy ended up in the ditch and he was mad at himself for fouling it up - it was a miracle that only one Sports class racer ended up there. He didn’t manage a second lap. I’ve never seen so many heavy landings. I hope that those who landed on their top-tubes weren’t too discouraged and will continue to come racing.

Jim Morrison shows how the Experts do it

* Giant Pro Leon De Jong can attest to my prowess at muddy slippery downhills.

That’s what I call ape hangers

So here’s where my love of all things two-wheeled comes from.

Having sat on the rowing machine through the British men winning the Team Pursuit Gold, setting a new world record in the process, Kirsty and I went to see the real thing last Friday at the World Track Championships in Manchester.

We didn’t miss out as one of the first things we saw on Friday evening was the British women repeating the trick and beating the Ukraine.

Some things we learnt.

• The French and the Brits are closer than we’d like to admit.
• The USA and Cuba really really needle one another.
• No-one, but no-one can carry off white lycra. Think butt-crack.
• The USA have swapped the star-spangled banner themed suits for that fascist favourite colour scheme of red, white and black. Read into that what you will.
• Points racing is Numberwang on wheels.
• The sheer draught caused by 23 blokes hurling round the stadium, often so close to the barriers that you had to lean back, is quite impressive.
• The track looks steeper from above than from below.

Fan

I celebrated (?) the third anniversary of the theft of Fan by putting my old Turner Burner back together.

Cross-country-tastic.

Turns out our local local bike shop are now bringing Jamis into the UK.

Another 29er singlespeed choice for the niche?

Eston, 1997

Uncle Peter captains the tandem of doom at Eston in 1997. There’s actual air under that rear wheel.

Nannerch, 1997

This was my first race on a ‘true’ singlespeed as opposed to the bodged up (chain tensioned) GT or cylco-cross bike I’d been riding until then. A borrow of “Uncle Tufty”, running a frankly silly 34:16 gearing at Nannerch in North Wales in 1997. Check out those thighs!