Sunday 31st August: Cycle Shopping on the Spesh

Ever since I've been to Amsterdam I have been mulling over how to use my bike more for commuting/shopping/general fubbing around and using my car less. I have a bike which is ideal for the purpose - my old Specialized Rockhopper. I bought it about 7 years ago and it was my first proper mountain bike and not cheap (around 800 pounds) but it was a 17" frame which is quite simply too big for me to comfortably handle offroad but was actually ok on the road. I now normally ride frames around the 14/15" mark offroad. I started cycling to work on it in the summer and just changed the tyres over and I put up with it as I knew no better and wasn't really doing anything particularly technical until meeting Jez who told me straight away the frame was too big. In the end I bought a 14" Rock Lobster frame from Merlin and moved most of the components from the Rockhopper onto it. The frame and forks languished in the garage all winter until I realised that doing a road commute on a small MTB was actually not that comfy and I couldn't be bothered changing the tyres over all the time as I was riding offroad about twice a week and trying to commute three times.

Jez managed to scrabble together enough parts together to build the frame back up into a commuter. It had a pair of his old Mavic disk wheels (disk only frame) which had white rims and actually looked pretty good on the frame as its white and red, we got a cheap pair of rigid forks and a pair of 170mm cranks from fleabay and we had old shifters/mech/cassette on it, I think I only had to buy a saddle for it in the end. I used this to commute to work for a couple of years and it was ideal for the purpose as I put a rack on it and used to carry my stuff in a rack pack. I only stopped using it as my commute changed from 8 hilly miles with the option of easy offroad through Cuerden Park to 18 flattish road miles to Blackpool and I bought a road bike instead and carried a small rucksack. I did persevere with the Spesh over the first winter but it just felt too heavy and the MTB ratio gears were annoying on the flat after getting used to a roadie.

Around November last year I put a new rear mech, cables, middle chainring and road 11-23 block on it which helped but I still preferred the roadie and its been hung up in the garage for months. I put 4 seasons tyres on the roadie as well just to make it handle better in the wet!

After our Sunday ride we decided we needed some lettuce so I thought, I'll cycle and pick it up and give my legs a spin out after this mornings ride. I knew by the time I'd sorted the Spesh I woldn't have time to get to Sainsburys so thought I'd go to Tesco which is about three miles away. So I wrestled it down from the wall (and hung the road bike up as I can lift that up and down easily), pumped the tyres up, lubed the chain then looked for my Kryptonite lock. I couldn't find it and in the end I had to use the mahoosive Abus one which took up loads of space in the rack pack and I decided to take a rucksack as well. I think I finally set off around 3:45 into some nice drizzle but quiet roads. I got to Tesco and discovered they don't seem to have any proper bike parking (or maybe its round the back of the store or somewhere equally unhandy) so locked it in the Trolley area along with a few other bikes then clattered my way round the store in my cycling shoes and looking like a dork no doubt in my helmet, the shoes were MTB ones thankfully else I'd be like Bambi on ice on that floor. I picked up lettuce, stamps (and posted my Nana's Get Well Soon card), then picked up a few blocks of President butter as it was on offer then headed out. Bike was still there thankfully and then cycled home on quiet roads again- easy peasy! It was a 6 mile round trip and took less than half an hour total cycling time, at that quiet time it would be quicker in a car but not by much.

I have plans to cycle to the Library, the farm shop, butcher and into the centre of Preston as it is definitely easier and quicker than taking the car nad I can park the bike for free (if I can get over the anxiety of having some scroat nick it, the Specialized branding and the disk brakes make it attractive). I need to find some quieter routes around Leyland if I'm cycling on a Saturday afternoon as the roads can be silly and I need to get organised enough to get most of my bulky shopping either once a month or delivered.

I have also invested in a pair of flippy pedals, one side SPD, the other flat as I would like to have the capacity to hop on with normal shoes. The only snagette is that I ride egg beaters rather than SPDs but I have a pair of Pearl Izumi shoes that I no longer use as I put my toe through the mesh on the front and if I can get the old eggbeater cleats off I will put SPD cleats on those as well as toe covers! There doesn't seem to be an equivalent pedal in the eggbeater style.

I have also ordered a pair of panniers for trips to the butchers and farm shop....I plumped for the Ortlieb back roller classic, they're completely waterproof and I figure I'll be able to sell them on if I don't use them enough. I've ordered the red ones, to match the bike (tart!). They should hopefully arrive in the next few days.

I need to find the Krytonite lock as its a more user friendly size than the extra long Abus one for ferrying around then I should hopefully be all set for errand running on the Spesh.

Sunday 31st August: Offroad Ride

Got out for a decent ride on Sunday. I wanted to do a ride of over 20 miles to start building endurance again. I have been coping well on shorter rides mainly because I have been well rested I think but my endurance is currently non-existent as even my long runs are rarely over two hours in length. Ed is in the same boat due to the arrival of little Molly and Jez has been away lots so we picked a ride around the Hebden Bridge area which we know and is testing but without being knackering. We decided to head out of Hurstwood rather than Worsthorne for a bit of variety. The plan was to head up to the Long Causeway, along the road for a bit then offroad down towards Tod via the golf course, along the canal to Hebden Bridge, cafe stop, warm the legs up with the road climb out of town, brutalise them with the climb from Hardcastle Crags whilst trying not to bring up lunch, cruise along the tops for a while before almost finishing ourselves off with the evil climb up from Widdop res, finishing with a lovely downhill back to the car.


It was pretty misty again, though not pea-soup foggy as it was on our Wednesday evening ride over Winter Hill. The moisture in the air helped cool things down as there was no wind at all. I really enjoyed the ride and still seemed to have some technical competence. We stopped in Hebden for a bite to eat but we were stopped for a little longer than ideal and I got quite cold. It took a while for my legs to get back into it again and they weren't really happy until up onto the moors but then I was bracing myself for the Widdop climb! I cleaned the climb but my lack of fitness was showing, not so much in overall speed but more in the amount of use I had to make of the flatter sections to bring my heart rate down, when I'm fitter it falls faster. I cleaned the last technical section but not without having a good argument with my bike about where it wanted to go and where I wanted it to go - I won this time.

Normally the climb up from Widdop is sweetened by the fact it is pretty much all downhill back to the car and I suppose it is but not with a major bloody headwind and eyes full of crap chucked up from the wheel, my own fault for not bringing my glasses and we all suffered the same. It was a nice cruise off the Gorple road back to the cars. As we started to pack up the rain properly started, timing!

So, will hopefully ride Wednesday (will need to dig lights out) but off next week so who knows what will happen as Jez wants to get some walking in and I want to go camping somewhere so hopefully weather will be kind.

I forgot to reset the Garmin at the start of the ride so it added it all on to Wednesday's ride but I think we covered about 23/24 miles.

August.....ooops!

Well, what can I say, what the hell happened to August and my activity level!!!!!! I've been quite a lazy moo to be honest and I quite enjoyed it! It was always going to be disrupted as we had a lot on in August with various weddings, birthday parties and associated hangovers to contend with but I'm up for doing something now! My bike mojo seems to have come back, I'm in love with my bikes again - all four of them. I even rode my Specialized tank "utility bike" on Sunday and I even enjoyed that, in the drizzle. It was my first shopping trip on it, more on that

My running mojo is still MIA but I think that's not helped by my grumpy psoas muscle. I did a three offroad runs over the month and I had the same problem I had when I started offroad running. I think it is the contrast between cycling (and sitting on my arse!) and running dowhill/faster. The cycling position shortens it and downhill running in particular really stretches it out. The first dodgy run was on the 18th of August and it showed up within the first half mile of course I continued to do another 6 or so very hilly miles and its been grumpy ever since. I tried again on the 22nd and it took a while longer to complain but I think that was because the first four miles are basically uphill. By the time I had finished the boggy descent off Great Hill it was very unhappy and I had to effectively jog back to the car as it was very, very tight. I was actually worried that something was about to tear but in hindsight doing a 7 mile offroad run with a dodgy hip was not one of my most sensible decisions.

I decided to take it easy until the Derwentwater Trail Race as I know I can get round that in the time limit.

Please Pass Wide and Slow......

I've seen this message regularly on the back of horse riders, usually on a flourescent jacket and I think the meaning is pretty self explanatory. The Highway Code says that when passing a horse (or cyclist) to give them as much room as you would a car. As a commuting cyclist and "vulnerable road user" I know that some drivers haven't paid any attention to this part of the Highway Code and a lot won't have looked at it since passing their driving test however many moons ago that was. I freely admit that I am hyper aware of it because I am said vulnerable user. I have had cars passing too close to me on a bike loads of times, it still gives me a fright and I have had wobbles at speed because of it. Passing a cyclist too close is one thing but surely common sense dictates that you should give a large animal like a horse plenty of room, its one thing spooking a cyclist its quite another spooking a large sentient animal with hooves....I always pass horses wide and slow, even on a pushbike and always warn the rider if I come up behind them and they haven't acknowledged I'm there.


On Saturday morning I saw the nasty (thankfully not as nasty as it could have been) consequences of not passing horses wide and slow.


Just heading away from Grange over Sands towards the A590 then the M6, the road was single lane each way but still reasonably wide. There was a stream of traffic heading towards the A590 and two horses and riders heading back towards Grange, single file with the rear rider wearing a flourescent jacket with the title message on it. A car appeared behind the riders and decided to pass rather than wait a little while (I'm sure he regrets this decision bitterly now). As there was a lot of traffic heading in the opposite direction from the horses there was no real space to overtake them safely but he did so anyway. I saw the whole thing and if he actually crossed the white lines it wasn't by much. He moved past the first horse which didn't do anything but he was so close it was scary. The horse in front took a real fright (as I would've done if a car had appeared that close behind me) and he spooked, badly. The horse reared up and it hit the front of the car, the car stopped but I think the horse stumbled and reared a bit again away from the car which eventually unseated the rider, she'd managed to hang on well until he lurched to the side. I think she bounced off the car before landing hard on the road and the horse started trotting off a little down the road then stopped.


I pulled over, as did Mel behind me and a few other cars. Mel used to work professionally with horses so went to catch the horse while I and the others went to the rider. She had landed hard on her knee and was complaining about it. Someone called an ambulance and Mel brought the horse back and we moved both horses off to the side of the road. The horse was bleeding from one of its fore legs but was surprisingly calm considering what had just happened and stood there quite happily while chaos ensued all around. It was not a skittish horse, it just didn't appreciate a car trying to pass with inches to spare. The only time the horse got a little restless was when someone tried to apply a dressing to its leg to help stem the flow of blood, which according to the non-injured rider looked worse than it really was. Rachel and Nicole were both struggling with looking at the bleeding horse as they are currently taking riding lessons. We sent them back to Mel's car until things were sorted to try and stop them getting too upset.

It turned out thehorses were from a stables only minutes down the road, the uninjured rider had phoned ahead and two people walked up the road then led the horses away quietly. They didn't seem too concerned about the bleeding leg and the girls seemed happier as they saw the horse walk by without problem. During this time the ambulance turned up and the injured rider was convinced to go with them to hospital. A couple of other witnesses were controlling the traffic and another witness turned out to be an off duty policeman who took everyone's details and a brief statement.

Once it was clear we could do no more we continued on our drive home.

The above happened on the 2nd of August and about a week later I saw two women riding horses on the roads around Rivington.....with no helmets on. I thought it was a legal requirement to wear a helmet when riding a horse. I know when I used to ride many moons ago the helmet rules were changed, the old style helmet I used to ride with wasn't good enough and jockey skull caps and silks started to become the norm.

Wednesday 30th July: Sacrificial Offroad Ride

Hurrah some bike time! The reason I have described this ride is sacrificial is that it was something that had to be gotten out of the way rather than enjoyed - sacrificed on the altar of my (and Jez's) return to fitness, much like yesterdays run was really. It was a case of reminding my body what it is like to ride a bike. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't really that enjoyable but it was needed.

In the end only Jez and I headed out and we took it pretty easy (and cut it short, lazy sods). It took a while for me to get into it, my heart rate climbed high early on and kind of stayed there, which is what I was expecting and it made everything seem hard work. I also hit 190 which isn't territory I visit very often thankfully. My bike handling skills were still ok and on the few occasions I did mess things up I managed to wrestle the bike back to where I wanted it, though as I was on the Titus I was being let off relatively easy. It was quite soft and weton some tracks to we decided against the track round the back and took the swoopy path back to the ford at the bottom of Mill Lane. The rough Mill Lane is one of my favourite descents but it is generally always wet, even on the driest of days and I hadn't brought my glasses. I have almost come off my bike on that descent in the past due to the amount of water and crap that ended up in my eyes due to lack of glasses. I enjoyed the change of whizzing down the smoth track and we headed back on the cheeky path through the woods .

It ended up being just under 9 miles which is pathetic really but hopefully things should improve now.

It looks like the bearings on the Titus swingarm are not long for this world, will need to get on Fattreads website or give them a ring to get some more. I need to get Jez to take a look at the bottom bracket too as I think its a bit grindy, kerching!